CHRISTIANS & HEALTH
Why should Christians be concerned about personal health? The answer is Biblical: in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, verses 19-20, he says, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” This means our bodies are not our bodies; our bodies belong to the Father.
We know that God loves us despite our sins, our inequities, and our illness. But we are still responsible for taking especially good care of ourselves if we are to call ourselves Christians. We know that God loves us no matter what size we are. Despite what the magazines might say, people can be fit and healthy at a size 6 or at a size 16. Physical fitness is not a question of vanity; it is a question of health. When addressing this issue, I think of Proverbs 11:14: “Where there is no counseling, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” I have been studying this problem for years, from many different angles. And maybe some of what I am about to say will surprise you.
I am not here only to encourage you lose a few pounds. I am not here only to give you some tips so you can fit into your favorite outfit. I am not here only to share a list of do’s and don’ts. I am here to call you to battle. Health and diet is not a personal war. An addiction to poor diet and a modern sedentary lifestyle are not personal choices. High blood pressure, diabetes type II, heart disease, colon cancer, psychological depression and lack of energy are not personal illnesses. I think these illnesses are battles of dominions and principalities, battles with global consequences that affect not only our families and our descendents, but our brothers and sisters all over the world.
Of course, our spiritual responsibilities as Christians are not limited to our personal health. But the choices we make to create personal health are part of a spiritual war. We need to choose sides. Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendents may live.”
How did I go from my personal concern of supplementing a web site, to your personal efforts to become healthy, to the worldwide curses of poverty and starvation? I hope I will be able to explain how they are interconnected. I hope I will be able to explain how the demonic forces that make us overweight, sick and tired here in the United States are the same forces that starve 45,000 of our brothers and sisters to death, every single day, all over the world. Every single day we make choices that affect our families, the entire world, and us. These choices include what we put into our bodies, which foods we eat, and how we balance our lives with rest and exercise. If we make poor choices, we will not have the physical stamina to do God’s will in our everyday lives. If we are Christian soldiers, if we want to be part of God’s army, then we need the health, the energy and the vitality to fight and endure.
Poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and excess weight are simply deadly. North Americans are overfed, overweight, and at the same time, undernourished. These factors, bad died, sedentary lifestyle, and overweight, are the causes of the biggest killers in the United States: heart disease, cancer and stroke. As temples of the Holy Spirit, to neglect our health is to disobey God. Jesus said in John, chapter 10, verse 10, “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.” As Dodie Osteen writes, "That verse says, you “might” have life, which means that it is our choice! We do not have to have abundant, healthy life, but we CAN if we want to."
What are some of the choices we make that can enhance our personal health? How do those choices affect the world? Let’s start with the most simple and basic choice we can make: EXERCISE.
Exercise can be classified into three types: aerobic training, strength training, and flexibility training. All three types of exercise are necessary to build fitness and health. All three types of exercise improve our moods, increase our energy levels, and release endorphins. Endorphins are chemical messengers made by the body itself; they are the body’s natural form of painkiller.
During Biblical times, daily physical exertion was normal. Everyone had to move in order to get through his or her day. They walked to get their food, their water, they walked to and from markets, and they walked to and from the homes of their friends. They built muscle tone and maintained flexibility when they carried burdens or performed their daily chores. In Biblical times, God’s chosen people didn’t suffer from mild-to-moderate depression, type II diabetes or obesity. If you travel to non-industrialized parts of the world, or if you’re from a non-industrialized country, you know that people who need to move in order to get through their day have strong muscle tone and lively minds well into old age.
Let’s talk about aerobic exercise first. The blood is highly oxygenated during aerobic activity. That means that the breathing increases and the heart rate increases. It means that all the muscles in the body are getting fresh supplies of oxygen, and the waste products of our system are swept away to make room for fresh nutrition. Aerobic activity conditions the heart, the lungs, the blood and the lymphatic system.
The blood circulates because the heart pumps the blood through our body. Unlike the circulatory system, the lymphatic system has no central pump; the lymph moves slowly and under low pressure due to the action of skeletal muscles. Lymph vessels depend mainly on the movement of skeletal muscles to squeeze fluid through them. The lymphatic system transports infection-fighting cells all over the body. It is the basis of our immune system. At any given time, the average person harbors about 5 pound of bacteria in the body -- almost beyond counting. The lymph system protects us from pernicious bacterial invaders. And it can not do its job if we do not move!
Walking is an especially healthy aerobic activity. Walking is God’s miracle. Only humans walk upright. God meant for us to walk. When we walk, the movement of our limbs are cross-patterned: the right leg and the left arm move forward at the same time, then the left leg and the right arm. This cross-patterned movement generates electrical activity in the brain that has a harmonizing influence on the whole central nervous system. The advantages walking are numerous: it only requires comfortable shoes.
At the very least, everyone (who is able) should walk thirty minutes a day. Walking can be a meditative activity, too. It is so easy and natural that we can multi-task when we walk: we can pray, or sing, or listen to worship music, without fear of injuring ourselves. Some people report that their most interesting conversations with God happen during a brisk walk.
Other types of aerobic activity include jogging, swimming, bicycling, and yes, singing. When we raise our voices high, and sing sustained notes, when we really sing with all our might, we are giving our lungs and our hearts exercise. Filling our lungs with fresh air and singing also releases endorphins. Sing every day for health! It is for our own benefit that Psalm 96 instructs us, “Sing unto the LORD a new song.”
The second form of exercise is strength training. Strength training builds muscle. It makes us stronger and more efficient at burning excess body fat, and it makes muscles more efficient for extended aerobic activity. Strength training also builds bone density. Resisting gravity is form of strength training: that includes a) squats, which train our legs, b) chin-ups and push-ups, which train our arms, c) sit-ups, which train our core muscles, our abdomen, or d) leg lifts, which also train our abdominal muscles. Lifting weights is another way to build muscle: dumbbells, weight machines, or just picking up a baby and carrying him or her around, are all ways to build muscle.
The third form of exercise is flexibility training. Flexibility training can be as simple and basic as bending over to touch your toes, or it can be as advanced as doing full splits and turning yourself into a human pretzel. Stretching revives the joints, improves circulation, reduces fatigue and stress, reduces muscle tension, reduces the risk of injury, improves mental alertness, alleviates pain, and it helps us relax.
Stretching is a Biblical practice! In 2 Kings, Chapter 4, Elisha accepted the hospitality of a Shunnamite couple. He prophesied that the Shunnamite woman would conceive a son. Within a year, she conceived. The son grew up, and one day he went out with his father to reap. The son fell and soon died. Elisha prayed to the LORD, faced the dead boy, and verse 34 says, “He went up and lay on the child, put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself on him and embraced him, the child's flesh became warm.”
What does this tell us about stretching? Stretching precedes miracles! All throughout Exodus, God instructed Moses and Aaron to stretch out their arms, stretch out their hands, and perform miracles. The word “stretch” appears 21 times in the book of Exodus!
For Christians, this means that obeying God’s command to “stretch” frees us from the bondage of fatigue, pain, and limitations. Stretching our bodies coincides with stretching our minds, our hearts, and our spirits. It is our inheritance. As God’s chosen people, we are supposed to go further than others, to reach further than others, to stretch ourselves out for the Glory of the Father. The more we stretch our bodies and minds, the more we are able to surrender to the instructions of the Holy Spirit. The Books of Acts, Chapter 4 Verse 30, says, “You stretch out your hand to cure and to perform signs and wonders through the authority and by the power of the name of your Holy child and servant, Jesus.” We all need to stretch every day!
I have discussed the three basic forms of exercise: aerobic training, strength training, and flexibility training. Before I talk about the personal, familial, and global consequences of diet choices, I would like to say a few words about rest.
We must be disciplined about rest. Rest equals restoration. Rest and sleep provide an opportunity for the body to cleanse, repair, and rejuvenate on a deep cellular level. Most people in our society are sleep deprived. Nourish your body with plenty of healing sleep and rest. Psalm 4 Verse 8 says, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You, Lord, alone make me dwell in safety and confident trust.” When we go to sleep, we should regard it as a gift, remembering that sleep is God’s natural way of restoring us, body and soul. Sleep is holy; we must do whatever we can to make sure we approach sleep with the same discipline and honor that we approach prayer, work, eating and exercise.
If possible, go to bed early, before 10 PM. When darkness falls, the body naturally wants to sleep. Overriding this desire for sleep interferes with the natural rhythm of cleansing. Biblical times, almost everyone went to sleep when it was dark. Nowadays, with television and artificial lights, people sometime stay awake longer than God intends. This is especially harmful for children and teenagers, who need their rest to grow as they develop into adults.
If you have trouble sleeping, one of the best cures for insomnia is regular exercise. Avoid eating for at least two hours before sleeping. This ensures that our body’s energy is used healing and rejuvenation, instead of digestion. If we do want to eat something before bed, a small piece of fruit is a good choice. Fruit is cleansing and digests quickly.
Regular naps are also a healthy habit. Many people allow themselves to nap only if they are sick. But the body has natural cycles of rest and activity, and a few minutes of rest in the mid-afternoon is a physiological need in many people. When you stop all activity to close your eyes and rest, both your body and your mind have an opportunity to relax deeply.
Here is something few people know: NAPS do not require deep SLEEP! A nap can simply be a deep rest. Notice when your mind begins to switch gears and ease into a dream-like state? That means your brainwaves have changed into an “alpha” wave. Simply allowing your brainwaves to dip into an “alpha” wave is enough to refresh your whole system. When you notice a “dreamy quality” of awareness, rouse yourself from your “nap.” This can take as little as 5-10 minutes!
The best time to nap is usually in the mid-afternoon, approximately 8 hours after you arise and 8 hours before you go to bed at night. For most people, this coincides with the time that they naturally feel the desire to nap somewhere around 3:00 PM.
If you actually FALL ASLEEP when you nap, or if you nap too late in the afternoon, you may have difficulty falling asleep at night. For most people, naps between 15 and 30 minutes are the most refreshing. After your nap, take a minute or two to stretch, walk around, and wash your face with cool water to relieve grogginess.
There are many Christian books on the market that deal with diet. Jordan Rubin wrote a bestselling Christian book called “The Maker’s Diet.” In it, he says the best diet is one that has many vegetables, which are free from pesticides, meat, which is free from pollutants, and milk, which is free from hormones. Rubin honors God’s instructions to the Hebrew people, and suggests that Kosher laws, like abstaining from pork and shellfish, are why the ancient Hebrew people were so much more healthy than their neighbors. Dr. Don Colbert wrote a book called, “What Would Jesus Eat,” which emphasizes the importance of whole foods rather than processed foods. Dr. Ben Lerner wrote a book called, “Body by God,” which emphasizes balancing nutrition, exercise, stress management, and time management. Stephen R. Kaufman and Nathan Braun wrote a book called, “Good News for All Creation: Vegetarianism as Christian Stewardship.” There are many other wonderful Christian books written about health, and they all offer unique information. I would like to share with you some of the most important ideas about diet that I have found from all the research I have done.
First and foremost: the food that God has created for us is always the healthiest choice we can make. The food processed in factories with additives and artificial ingredients cannot compare to God’s original plan for nutrition. Processed foods, bleached wheat, white flour, chemical sweeteners, corn sweeteners, artificial fats, and packaged products quickly convert to body fat and threaten our well-being.
Processed foods and additives can cause cancer, allergies, heart disease, asthma, and even attention deficit disorder. Before a school psychiatrist prescribes Ritalin for your child, learn out about elimination diets and rotation diets, which are alternatives that have been very successful for some children. One book about this subject is Marcia Zimmerman’s “The A.D.D. Nutrition Solution: A Drug-Free 30 Day Plan.” For some children, simply eliminating artificial food colorings combined with regular exercise is enough to calm hyperactivity.
When making food choices, we must ask ourselves, is this whole food? Is it the way God created it?
One example of whole food is a baked sweet potato, commonly known as a yam. It is loaded with vitamins and much lower in starch than a white potato. In its natural state, it is a whole food, as God intended. However, a processed yam, for example, in the form of a sweet potato pie, has added sugar, white flour and dairy fat. In the processed form of a pie, the yam has lost many of its healthy qualities.
Another example of a whole food is fish. Cold-water fish, especially wild salmon, sardines and mackerel, are extremely healthy for our hearts. An example of a processed version of fish is a frozen fish stick. These are battered in processed flour and starch, and they are usually coated with artificial oils, known as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. The wholesomeness of the fish is lost in the factory processing.
Simply use your eyes: does this food look the same as when God created it? Then it’s usually a healthy choice.
Another example of a whole food is a slice of whole grain bread, where the bran, the germ and the starch are all intact. It is much healthier than a slice of bread made with processed flour, where the grain no longer has its bran layer or its germ center. Supermarket breads usually have hydrogenated oils, too, which make them even more dangerous to health. There is a type of bread on the market called “Ezekiel Bread,” which was inspired by Ezekiel 4:9, which says, “Also take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them into one vessel and make bread of them. ” Ezekiel Bread is made from sprouted whole grains, and it is available in the frozen section of larger supermarkets. Ask your local supermarket manager to carry it, if they don’t have it already.
Here’s a basic rule of healthy nutrition: your plate should remind you of the rainbow God gave to Noah. The colors in the vegetables and fruits we eat indicate the type of nutrition they offer: orange foods, like carrots, squash and sweet potatoes, are high in beta-carotene. Leafy greens are high in B vitamins and other photochemicals, like chlorophyll. Red foods, like tomatoes and watermelon, have lycopene. Blue foods like blueberries, dark grapes and red cabbage have anthrocynin, which is an anti-oxidant.
There are few things more beautiful to the eye than fresh, wholesome fruit and vegetables. Their beauty is part of God's plan, and we are meant to nourish ourselves through our eyes as well as our mouths. Science does not yet fully understand how this works, but with every passing year, the Glory of God is revealed in unforeseen ways. Food is truly a miracle.
AVOID high-fructose corn syrup. Almost all nutritionists agree that high-fructose corn syrup is a major contributor to the nation's obesity crisis. It was introduces as a cheap sweetener, which food companies embraced and put into everything: from soda pop to ketchup to “health” foods like low-fat yogurt. Since it was introduced in the early 1980s, the nation's obesity rate started its unprecedented climb. "The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream. The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more and at the same time, we are storing more fat." Please check the labels of foods, and don’t buy anything with these poisonous sweeteners in them.
CONSIDER RAW HONEY AS A SWEETENER. Raw honey is a good choice for flavor and health. Pasteurized honey does not compare to the nutritional, healing properties of raw honey. In Genesis, honey is mentioned as a preferred gift (Genesis 43:11). It was used as a sweetener and as a healing balm in Biblical times, and still is today. However, INFANTS AND BABIES UNDER TWO YEARS OLD SHOULD NEVER EAT HONEY! Discuss this with a pediatrician if you have further questions.
Maple syrup is also a good choice, containing trace amounts of minerals.
Brown rice syrup has a delightful, nutty flavor and is wonderful for baking. Furthermore, it has a low glycemic index. That means that the sugars in brown rice syrup do not raise the blood sugar levels as quickly as other forms of sugar. It is a sweetener that can help stabilize blood sugar, when used in moderation.
The latest natural sweetener on the market is AGAVE NECTAR. Agave is derived from the cactus plant, has a wonderful mild sweetness, and dissolves easily in cold and hot liquids. Most important, it is a low glycemic index sweetener. It is beneficial for everyone to pay attention to their blood sugar and avoid wild fluctuations of highs and lows. Agave nectar is suitable even for diabetics, if used in moderation, and under the guidance of a nutritionist or dietician.
We have 100 trillion cells in our bodies, and every one of those cells is covered in a fatty membrane. These membranes protect the cell from toxins, and help each cell to communicate with the other cells in the body. Some nutritionists think that fats are the most important nutrient in the body. We must be very careful and choose healthy dietary fats. Our brains are depended on the quality of fats we consume.
In Europe, depression is being successfully treated through dietary modification. FATS are especially emphasized. Omega-3 fatty acids are God’s natural medicine for the mind.
The best dietary fat you can use is Extra-Virgin, Cold-Pressed Olive Oil. Extra-Virgin means that it is from the first pressing of the olive fruit (not the second pressing, called virgin olive oil, or third pressing, called pure olive oil, when there is less nutritive value). Cold-pressed means that the oil was harvested by mechanical means, physically pressed or crushed, rather than extracted with chemical solvents. Canola oil is the next healthiest choice, but not nearly as healthy as cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil.
The oils found in RAW nuts and seeds, especially almonds and walnuts, are very healthy. Roasted nuts and seeds are NOT as nutritious as raw nuts because the high roasting temperatures degrade the molecular structure of the fats.
Avocados contain healthy fats, are high in protein, and are a delicious substitute for butter. Try spreading them on whole grain toast, with a dash of sea salt, instead of butter.
COLD WATER FISH are WONDERFUL sources of omega-3 fatty acids and healthy fats! Eating fish has biblical precedence: after His resurrection, Jesus ate some broiled fish to prove to the frightened disciples that He was not a ghost (Luke, 24:36)! The third time the resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples, He cooked them a fish breakfast on the shore (John, 21:6-14)!
Choose wild (Pacific) salmon and Alaskan salmon, available fresh, frozen or canned (as sockeye, chum and pink salmon). Also, you can get the same fatty acids from other cold water fish including mackerel, sardines, herring, and black cod.
AVOID farmed salmon, also known as Atlantic salmon, which is high in tumor-causing PCB’s, unregulated antibiotics, unapproved pesticides and fungicides. Farmed salmon is high in omega-3, but farmed salmon is also very high in arachidonic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid implicated in cancer and inflammatory illness. Arachidonic acid undermines any benefit the omega-3 offers.
AVOID hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils. They are poison. They were invented so that big food companies could distribute baked goods and processed goods cheaply, and make big profits. You will find hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils in chips, cookies, cakes, breads, crackers, frozen meals, non-dairy creamers, shortening, and margarines. These products with hydrogenated oils have long “shelf lives,” but they shorten our lives significantly. Please check the labels of foods, and don’t buy anything with these poisonous fats in them.
AVOID DEEP FRIED FOODS whenever possible. High temperatures alter the molecular structure of fats, and are dangerous to the human body.
Choose organic food whenever possible. Organic foods include vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, dairy products and meat products. They are grown without chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, genetic engineering, and antibiotics. Everyone in the Bible ate organic food: there were no factory farms in ancient times. Organically raised cows, sheep and chickens eat a natural, pure diet of grasses and grains, without pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Organically raised animals roam freely and are naturally disease-free. The milk produced by organic cows is free from pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
Factory farms, on the other hand, grow conventional food. Conventional foods include vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes, dairy products and meat products. Conventional foods are grown with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and antibiotics. These chemicals are not healthy for us to eat. The workers in conventional farms, like migrant workers, suffer from all kinds of illnesses due to the chemicals used in the factory farm method, which is another reason to choose organic whenever possible.
On factory farms, cows are routinely fed cow organs; chickens are fed chicken innards, pigs are fed everything, including pigs, and they are all pumped full of antibiotics to keep them disease free. These animals are also fed hormones, especially artificial estrogen, so that they grow larger. One of the reasons why our daughters are reaching puberty before their time is due to the artificial hormones in our food supply. Every time we eat factory-farmed animals, we are loading our bodies with hormones God never intended us to consume. In the small and developing bodies of our children, the impact of eating the hormones found in chicken, beef, pork and dairy is very unhealthy. When so many of our daughters are reaching puberty at 8, 9 and 10 years old, rather in their teenage years, as God intended, we are faced with all sorts of problems.
Organic farming is environmentally sound. It preserves the top soil, it does not poison the water tables, and it does not poison the farm workers who toil the land. The National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming and environmental degradation is a “values issue” that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth.
At the beginning of this essay, I said that the same forces that make Americans obese are the forces that make 45,000 of our brothers and sisters starve to death every day. Now, I will try to explain what I mean by that statement.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve ate fruits and vegetables. It was enough. According to Genesis, chapter one, all creatures, both humans and animals, ate only plant food. It wasn’t until the flood, when virtually all plants were destroyed, that God gave Noah permission to eat meat. Eating meat came with a curse, according to Genesis 9:12, animals would no longer be humanity’s friends: “The fear and the dread of you shall rest on every animal…”
Today, in the United States, we are blessed with a wide range of healthful, tasty, convenient plant foods, much like in Eden. Yet, tens of millions of people on the planet earth die annually from starvation-related causes, and one billion people are malnourished. In Matthew, Chapter 25 Verse 35, Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed and entertained and lodged Me.” Jesus instructs us to feed each other, but how can we feed the least among us, the poorest of the poor in countries far away? We can’t physically transport foods to places where people need it the most. We can donate money, of course. But there is something we all can do. I think if we make the best choices for our own bodies, according to God’s plan, our choices will have a ripple effect. We can obey God’s commandment to take good care of ourselves, to take care of our brothers and sisters, and to be good stewards of the earth.
In short, we can reduce the amount of meat that we consume.
Meat-centered diets can cause various types of cancer, including breast, colon, lung, ovary, and prostate cancers. Meat-centered diets cause can heart disease. Meat-centered diets can even reduce the pancreas’s ability to produce insulin, which can contribute to the development of type II diabetes. Meat-centered diets can cause stroke, early puberty, constipation, and overweight. Vegetarians weigh less, enjoy better health, and have an easier time maintaining weight than their meat-eating peers.
I am not saying never to eat meat, although vegetarianism seems to work very well for Seventh Day Adventists, who are among the healthiest of Christians. Nor am I saying that we should stop celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter with the foods our families enjoy most. What I am saying is that we should look upon these celebrations as exceptions to our daily discipline of moderation and sobriety in all material things. If we just eliminate one or two meat-centered meals a week, and replace them with healthy vegetarian meal, we are helping our own bodies, and we are helping our hungry brothers and sisters by sustaining and conserving the environment we all share.
How does reducing meat consumption help hungry people across the ocean? Here is part of the answer: 66% of the grain harvested in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. That grain could be fed to people rather than animals. It takes 2500 gallons of drinking water to raise one pound of beef, whereas it takes about 25 gallons of drinking water to raise one pound of grain. If our government did not subsidize the cattle business with corporate handouts, beef would cost $45 dollars a pound. Converting grains to meat wastes 67-90% of grains’ proteins, up to 96% of their calories, and all of their fiber. Meat consumption, especially in rich countries like the United States, greatly increases demand for grains. Because land, water, and other resources are limited, growing demand for meat increases the cost of all food, and the world’s poor become increasingly unable to afford food of any kind.
Let’s look at an historical aspect of diet. For some of us, numbers of our ancestors, who were trafficked here from Africa to the Americas through the Middle Passage, were exceptionally strong and healthy. In the first place, slave-traders wanted only healthy people to ship to the Americas. In the second place, surviving the Middle Passage required great health and strength. The ancestors who were trafficked here were the cream of the crop.
What did these ancestors eat when they lived and thrived in Africa? Most ate vegetables and grains. For most people in Africa, meat was a delicacy, not for everyday consumption. Daily survival depended on tubers (like yams and cassava), legumes (beans and lentils), vegetables, nuts, fruits and grains. These wholesome foods are the real “soul foods.” Only because of slavery were the ancestors introduced to such foods as ham hocks, pig’s feet, ribs and chitlins, which were the parts of the animal the slave owners did not want to eat. I am not criticizing the ancestors! They ate what they had to eat in order to survive, and made their food delicious, delicacies to the senses! But today, in the midst of North American abundance, we have a responsibility to claim the healthy life that is our inheritance as Children of the Most High.
Remember Daniel? Offered King Nebuchadnezzar’s diet (similar to the Standard American Diet: lots of meat, fish, eggs and delicacies), he and his friends rejected it! Instead, Daniel and his friends chose to eat VEGETABLES and WATER. "At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food." (Daniel, 1:11-15) They were also found ten times better in mind as well as body.
I am not asking any of us to become strict vegetarians. But, I am asking all of us to examine choices, learn more about nutrition and vegetarianism, and pray for guidance. John 10:10 says, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” This thief takes many forms, and he seduces us if we are not vigilant. Recognize that junk foods and excessive eating steal our life, just as surely as drugs, violence and gambling addictions.
When we eat too much, or when we eat foods that God never intended for us, we are drugging ourselves. Many of us, here in the United States, are addicted to junk food or overeating. As Christians, we avoid alcohol, drugs, gambling, and other vices. We are also called to give up our addictions to unhealthy foods and immoderate eating habits. Whenever we indulge addictive cravings, we become lethargic, docile, and ill. Overeating, or eating junk food, is very similar to taking tranquilizer pills. We must rebuke addictive food habits. When we are addicted, we are not able to fight with all our might! We don’t have the energy!
When we need relief from anxiety, the answer is always GOD. The answer to anxiety is never Hostess Cupcakes, Wise Potato Chips, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Big Macs, and Coca-cola. We cannot allow these foods, or overeating of any kind, to fill the need only God can fill. The big companies that produce these products spend billions of dollars advertising to us, and to our children, who are impressionable. These companies do not care about our health, they care only about their profit. These junk foods cause obesity, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and depression. Junk foods and sedentary lifestyle prevent the vitality and health God intended for us.
We have chosen life, through Jesus Christ. Don't try to restructure your life (or diet) all by yourself: call on Jesus for guidance and strength! We are called to be obedient only unto him, and to rebuke demonic influences, whatever their form. I would like to conclude with Psalm 91, verses 15-16: “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.” Amen.
*The preceding essay is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for medical advice. The sources are cited through text links. Oversights in citations and source credit are accidental.