GET TO KNOW JESUS; I WAS FIVE

It's personal for you: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9.

I was five years old. I crawled out of my lower bunk bed in our little room. My older sister was asleep on the top. I went into the “living room” with a double bed which was my parents' bedroom…Our little house had running water but an outhouse instead of a bathroom. I crawled into the bed beside my father and told him I was afraid. I wanted to be saved. He prayed something like this: “Heavenly Father, Elisabeth wants to receive You into her heart.” Then he said to me, “Pray after me: Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you died for my sins and rose again from the dead. Please come into my heart and save me.”

My father (an Evangelist) and wonderful mother were diligent to read all of the Bible to us (their eight children) every day…from beginning to end three times a day all the way through it, as we grew up. Their diligence also taught us music. We ended up for many years, traveling the US, Canada and a little in Mexico singing, playing instruments and my brothers dramatized Bible Stories.

I remember that night clearly: peace came into my young life: from there it was continuous: Loving the Bible, seriously pursuing knowing God.

“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.” 2 Peter 3:18. It’s exciting to grow…knowing Jesus is your privilege. Having the Creator, the Father, Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. Heaven forever is your future after you die… 

“STRENGTHEN YOUR BODY AND YOUR HEART…”

An exercise program that is yours and personal, a pursuit of health and beauty, this is a sideline that you will sooner or later enjoy: "According as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue...giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge...;" (2 Peter 1:3,5).

In the big picture, life is short. But when we are alert to the things that help us to become all God created us to be we help ourselves. Our lives take on a sense of adventure.

“Keep your heart with all diligence…” this is physical and spiritual.

“Now they that run in a race, run all, but one receives the prize…so run that you may obtain.” (I Corinthians 9:24). It refers to your physical and spiritual challenges. Here is a picture of an active person spiritually and physically.

I did not know that when our son, Zach, challenged me to write about health, that the Bible would reveal such a powerful comparison between the physical and spiritual wellbeing of our lives and that one describes the other: it powerfully deepens the application of Scripture to your life.

HEART, LUNGS, CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM

Aerobic conditioning strengthens your cardiovascular system. This means moving so that your heart rate quickens. It is the process of your heart and lungs processing oxygen through your physical body. It does not have to be grievously hard: begin easily. If you are a healthy person, all you need do is add to the usual moving in your day. Making exercise a regular thing, you are gradually growing in endurance and strength. More, you will find that exercise helps your mood, your sense of wellbeing, your confidence, and your strength. You confidently realize, “I am doing this!” It is possible in most circumstances to continue to be, stay and grow strong. Even as you age, there are important reasons to continue and never stop.

 

When we were married only about six months, my husband bought Dr. Kenneth Cooper’s book, Aerobics. It has been for all these years the catalyst for knowledge, inspiration and know how. It was an excellent and medically sound introduction to serious exercise. Eric began training on his own, following Dr. Cooper’s approach. His wife, Mildred Cooper wrote a sequel, “Aerobics for Woman.” I learned about her writing through Eric’s study from Dr. Cooper. I had just had our first son, and was not even beginning to think of exercise, when Eric’s example stirred me. Mildred Cooper’s writing and experience changed my life. My younger sister and I began walking, and then jogging before daylight, with our firstborn still sleeping and before Eric took off for work across town.

The benefits have come over time…your whole life is influenced. Walking, jogging, biking, and any exercise that elevates your heart rate (in a controlled program) and makes your lungs work will change how you look and feel. This along with whole grains and good foods are going to strengthen your heart, give you confidence and improve your life. "Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper’s book and Bicycling Magazine equipped both of us and later our family bicycle rides for safety and Rules for the Road.

Figurative and literal truth come together and teach us a broad and practical way to invest our lives.

WHEN YOU PONDER YOUR PATH

A song touched me deeply growing up. As my father and mother led eight children into forty-eight states, Canada and a bit in Mexico, we sang “How About Your Heart . . . is it right with God, that’s the thing that counts today.  Is it black with sin, is it pure within? Won’t you ask Christ in today . . . People often see you, just as you are outside; Jesus really knows you, for He sees inside . . .”

There is temptation to join up, be part of the crowd: the loud, boisterous, opinionated . . . at times drunken, violent, immoral players.  Are you a Believer in Jesus? Ponder your path…walk away!  Say to your loving Heavenly Father, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me . . . take not your Holy Spirit from me . . . restore to me the joy of your salvation.” Psalm 51:10.

If we don’t get it right inside, we might end up for a lifetime with a darkened heart. 

The Book of Jonah is about (you know) Jonah and the whale. He did his best to run from God...and "God prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah..." He was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights...he repented inside the whale, decided to go to Nineveh and warn the people. "Yet forty days and forty nights and Nineveh will be overthrown..."

Even the wicked King of Nineveh got it. When the reticent prophet Jonah finally obeyed the LORD and walked through Nineveh for three days, he shouted out loud: the King responded. “For word came to the King of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not?  And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” Jonah 3:6-10

When you ponder your life, what comes to mind is: Is there a purpose for my life? Does God (who created everything in heaven and on earth) see me? Love me? Did he die on a cross for MY SINS? Your answer is a resounding, "Yes."

Now it is your turn and my mine.   "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

SNACK FOR A LIFETIME

From the first day I was born, and every day thereafter, my father and mother with their family of eight children read the Bible aloud together every day. Seven siblings and I learned to read this way. It influenced me, and even before I realized, it directed my life. By my twenties, my health pursuits became an adventure primarily because of Scripture.

At one point I traveled to Texas. I could type well and got a job at Link-Temco-Vought (LTV) in Dallas. There all the ways of the culture came up, including food and alcohol. Instead of going rogue, I decided to follow the Bible already planted in my head and heart. My spirit, soul and body needed to be fed. I saw good food described in Scripture.  For example, Ezekiel’s bread. God told Ezekiel, "Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof..." (Ezekiel 4:9). Food is also figurative, "And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes on me shall never thirst." (John 6:35). Physical bread and spiritual bread are a highlight in Scripture, in both the Old Testament and the New.

The Bible has vital information about food and health sprinkled all the way through and in surprising places. We can go to it with certainty. Here is dependable wisdom and knowledge because our Creator wrote it all for us. It is the “bottom line” in nutritional wisdom. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”  (2 Peter 1:21).

The more you learn about nutritious food, its value to your health, the more you will enjoy it. Once getting it into your head and heart, once convinced, eating knowledgably, eating wisely becomes a habit. Habitually eat what is good, you will soon look forward to it, even crave it. Grab salted almonds or a crisp apple and cheddar cheese; the snack for a lifetime. 

A FOOD CRISES IN AMERICA

 Today, as we walked out of a local restaurant with a friend, my husband remarked, "So many people in the restaurant looked unhealthy." It was unusual for him to make such a remark. Some diets are good, and some are not. Which is good for you, which ones are bad? They contradict each other. The sure way to know the food that is good is to look for it in Scripture. When God over and over promises to bring his children to a land “flowing with milk and honey” then go here and think through what flows from milk and honey: whole milk, cream, butter, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt. Also, honey is known to kill bacteria. See Extraordinary Benefits of Honey for Your Skin and Hair and Health at https://veryhealthy.life

It is important to know that there is good and evil for your spirit, your soul and body. "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good." (Isaiah 7:15).

"l call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19).

"And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land." (Isaiah 7:22).

The fallacy that the Old Testament is not to us, about us and for us, will hinder you. You can trust the wisdom of Scripture. Not only is it the bottom line of truth for your life, but it is also the only trusted path to Heaven and it never changes. Here are affirmations for you:

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16). Here are words of Jesus, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Matthew 24:35). In Mark and Luke are the exact same words. "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." (Proverbs 30:5).

"For whatsoever things were written aforetime (to write previously) were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15:4).

THE BREAD QUESTION

 

 

THE BREAD QUESTION

IT IS SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL

FOR HEART AND HEALTH

Growing up, my father (who did not eat white flour, white sugar, or margarine) knew there was something wrong with the food culture in America. To prove his view to his children, he would sit on a loaf of white bread; it went “flat as a pancake.” My mother stopped buying white bread when we were young.

She didn’t stop there. It is my mother’s legacy. She began making whole wheat bread. Before finding the latest news on health was convenient, she knew instinctively: whole grains made sense.

Since my father and mother began the emphasis on eating healthy food, it was natural for their eight children to know there is a difference between processed and whole food.

It is not just for my husband and me now. Our son and daughter in law asked me to show them how to make bread, then again brought it up, “When we come over are we going to make bread?” Below is a simple recipe for making whole wheat bread.

The naturally harvested wheat includes the bran, endosperm and germ. An unwitting consumer is denied the benefit of whole grain when it is taken apart and sold separately.

If the endosperm is processed (bleached white), then made into bread, it is minus the powerful nutrition found in the whole grain. The bread made from it becomes the airy white loaf most often sold in grocery stores at home and the world over. The white flour is eye appealing and has a much longer shelf life. The bran and germ are gone from the grain and sold separately.

This “allenpuff” which my father called it, could be one major reason for health problems. When a lifetime of devitalized bread with no heart strengthening power from protein, and minerals is our regular diet we suffer. Often the food industry separates the most nutritious parts and sells them separately.

Bread bleached and degermed are not health building. Like fast food available everywhere, it is a trap. Easy, quick, cheap, habit forming, addictive. Fad diets confuse and frustrate us and work against hope for good health. When a better Way is right in front of you, take it! “Who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.” Psalm 103:5

The combination of “fine flour, oil and honey” are included in Scripture all the way through. Until in the New Testament we see Jesus as the perfect picture of healthful bread. “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35 

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:51.

WHEN "THIS IS A CHRISTIAN NATION" IS REJECTED

 For 250 years, the United States of America has grown to become the most prosperous, wise and kind nation on earth: Why, because the Creator, the God of the Universe has all power, all wisdom and knowledge. He created the world and everything in it. Our forefathers began it with this background; if we are humble, wise and honest, we will be grateful for the Saviour of the world who is Jesus, the Son of God. God, the Father sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him! "I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My Hand..." John 10:28, 29.

Yes, there are enemies of God even within "our own gates" and we can with the love and grace bestowed on us, as Christians, boldly say,

I BELIEVE that a government "Of the People, By the People and For the People" is a special privilege given to us by our Creator as Citizens of the United States of America. That precludes that knowledgeable and informed members of our Nation participate to protect and preserve it.   The Constitution, and Bill of Rights are uncommon wisdom and gifts to us.

“This Is a Christian Nation” In 1892, the United States Supreme Court ruled, "This is a Christian Nation." The ruling, issued by Associate Justice David Brewer, has never been legally disputed or overturned.

"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." Isaiah 59:2

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

I am calling our Country to humble themselves and pray and seek the face of our Creator,  

The very words of Jesus when He taught His followers to pray.