Food Addiction – We Were Meant to Live in a Garden, not a Bakery. – Purity 1248

Food Addiction – We Were Meant to Live in a Garden,
not a Bakery. – Purity 1248

Purity 1248 01/15/2024 Purity 1248 Podcast

Purity 1248 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the sun shining bright over the
rocky shores of Lake Ontario and a group of SUNY Oswego co-eds comes to us from
a currently unknown Facebook Friend who posted this photo on social media back
on or around July 7^th, 2023.  I
suspect that this may have been posted by my Alma Mater themselves but if this summertime
scene is yours and you want to claim it, give me a heads up and I’ll update the
blog after the fact to give photo credit where the photo credit is due, and
will gladly give the disclaimer that while I shared your view of Lake Ontario,
you don’t necessarily share mine when it comes to life and faith.  

Well, It’s a Monday and as much as I like to report
on walking in Freedom and Victory, I have to admit it when I fall down.  When we are tired of being sick and tired of
our bad habits, we have to fight them. 
And even though it can be exhausting to keep having to fight the same
battle over and over again – when we examine our losses we may discover a way
to win.  It can be tiring but if we keep
going to the Lord for help, He is faithful to help us. 

Quite frankly, I’m a little tired of my “sweet relapses”
and am recovering from making the foolish decision to abandon my food plan yesterday
evening to indulge in more carbs than I’m used to by eating a box of chocolate caramels,
some mixed nuts, and other sweets that were “laying around the house”.  Yeah those leftover holiday treats were just
asking for it and they had to be devoured, or so the enemy or my flesh
whispered in my ear,  and I am feeling
the pain this morning. 

Food addiction is a tough cookie to crack and
requires diligence, renewing the mind, and planning and in this case I think it
required “phoning a friend” but I didn’t do that. I “spent” my food budget
early and even though I should have been satisfied with the food I ate and just
went to bed – I was inundated with the temptation to “eat the candy” and
although I resisted it for a time, I found myself giving in and then going hog
wild – leaving nothing behind to tempt me today.  But ooh the pain – not just from regret but
from my body struggling to process that junk out of my system. 

One of the keys to victory over food addiction is
recognizing how the food that tempts us isn’t “good food” it is actually the “junk”
that we say it is and it puts stress on our bodies if we are used to eating
healthy foods.   “We were supposed to
live in a garden, not a bakery.” is my summation on what I believe was God’s
plan for us – in terms of what we should eat. 
Agree to disagree if you like but in my experience, I have learned that “carb-high”
foods are the enemy’s trap for the obese, and good health will only come when
we change our hearts and minds about how we think about them and make the decision
to stop eating them for good.  

Jesus said that people don’t live on bread alone and
for the food addict, I would suggest saying no to the stuff altogether as our
freedom over the bondage to food that enslaves us may require the elimination
of the smorgasbord of high-carb food choices that keep the fat attached to our
bodies.   I have learned this lesson the
hard way and made great progress in beating my food addiction and experiencing
the best health of my life currently. 

So while yesterday’s binge won’t move the dial on
the scale too much, it has moved me to once again to see how dumb it is to give
in to temptation and how much I need the Lord to guide me.  

The truth is I had a long day of spiritual pursuits
yesterday and as the day got late, I got the idea to “take a break” and decided
to “watch something secular” and I decided I would watch a Harry Potter movie, I
had never seen and as soon as I made that switch to worldly entertainment –
featuring witchcraft – it was as if a spell was put on me and off I went to eat
all the junk… Did I invite the enemy in? 
I think I did! So even though I have only seen the first few Harry Potter
movies, after reading the first few books, years ago – I will not be looking to
Harry and his friends to entertain me ever again.  Evil is a subtle beast and I now realize that
if I look for the world for comfort – especially the occult – there will be
negative consequences and most likely a fleshly response followed by
regrets.  So I’ll try to learn from this –
Harry Potter movies – not for me – Cheat Days only cheat me and make me feel
physically ill.  

I’m a work in progress but I am confident that if I
stay self-aware and keep walking and talking with God, I will continue to
experience the freedom and victory that the Lord has for me that will be
accompanied by peace and joy that comes from walking in the Spirit and living
with no regrets.

——————————————————————————————–

Today’s
Bible verses come to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.

(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick
Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late
author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This
morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Comfort.

Psalm 89:1-8 (NIV2011)
¹  I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever; with my mouth
I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
²  I will declare that your
love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven
itself.
³  You said, “I have made a
covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant,
⁴  ‘I will establish your line
forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’ ”
⁵  The heavens praise your
wonders, LORD, your faithfulness too,
in the assembly of the holy ones.
⁶  For who in the skies above
can compare with the LORD? Who is
like the LORD among the heavenly
beings?
⁷  In the council of the holy
ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him.
⁸  Who is like you, LORD God Almighty? You, LORD, are mighty, and your faithfulness
surrounds you.

Today’s
verses fall under the 18th point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Comfort.

18. God is unchangeably
faithful.

 

Today’s verses literally
sing of the Lord’s love for us and how there is no one like our God when it
comes to faithfulness.   

Yesterday, I was led
through an Immanuel Prayer session by my friend Juliane Kammrath and even
though I have had my doubts and skeptical thoughts regarding this type of
prayer ministry, yesterday’s session left me with a lot less of them as I had an
amazing experience of  Jesus’ love and
presence.  

In Immanuel Prayer,
participants are invited to recall joyful memories and then invite God to
reveal to them His presence in that moment. While I won’t go into specifics of
what I went through yesterday, I will say that Jesus showed up in a major way
and I felt the love that is unique to encounters with the divine.  I am no stranger to the Lord’s presence, and
it was good to be back together again to share in the joy of our journey
together, to receive guidance and encouragement, and to thank Him for His faithfulness.   

In order to find God, you
have to seek Him and Immanuel Prayer is one way to do that. However, I would
say that a life of discipleship – of walking in the Spirit – sets that
foundation for a life of peace and joy and of continually knowing the peace,
joy, and love of the Lord.  

If you seek the Lord and
if you don’t follow Him with the way you live, you may struggle to know peace,
to know joy, or to know experientially God’s love.   If all these seem like foreign concepts to
you or you think I am “just making things up” and trying to lure you into some “religious
trap” where you end up in a cult, let me assure you that you don’t follow me or
join a particular church to experience the presence and love of the Lord.   You can find Him for yourselves and experience
those for yourself when you decide to put your faith in Jesus and decide to
surrender to His ways for your life. You seek Him by following Him and when you
follow Him you will find Him, and you will know His love because as the psalmist
says in today’s verse – God’s love stands firm forever – and His faithfulness
surrounds Him.  

——————————————————————–

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from “According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A
Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.

EVENING READING:
MATTHEW 8

“Only speak a word.” – Matthew 8:8

“The word
of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb.
4:12).

He brought
the worlds into existence by speaking a Word. He upholds all things by the Word
of His power. He spoke and the dead were raised. At His Word, men and women
were healed.

Even
though it was faith that revealed it to him, it is a wonder that this man could
utter such a statement: “Only speak a word.” Peter likewise, on one occasion,
had to set aside experience and knowledge and by faith say, “Nevertheless at
Your word” (Luke 5:5). People marveled at the gracious words that proceeded out
of the Lord’s mouth. He spoke as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

 

I praise You, O Lord, for Your wonderful and
powerful Word. May I trust Your Word
and act upon it more fully.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

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These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ),  her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship