Healing by The Renewing of The Mind and the Flow of God's Life Within Us

In general sickness comes from sin. It first entered into mankind through the fall (Genesis 3:1-7). This was the injection of Satan himself with all the satanic element into Adam and Eve. They were in effect corrupted. This corruption had an issue which was death. Firstly, the injection of sin caused man to be separated from God, secondly the injection of sin caused man to die. Sin is insidious; it corrupts our soul, and through our flesh kills us.

Aside from the sickness that comes from sin, and the death produced from the sin element within us, our bodies from time to time become worn down. There is much to be said about spiritual warfare and our bodies, especially our minds. The enemy uses darts as thoughts to distract our mind from being set on the spirit and following God in a full way. Our mind needs to be constantly under the control of the spirit and in subjection to God. It should in a sense be buffeted by ourselves and at the least be under the subjection of our will connected to the spirit at all times, including in our sleep. Through our will, we may direct our mind to be set upon the spirit. This is accomplished through prayer, Bible reading, and fellowship with God and other brothers and sisters. We should not do this "in ourselves." But we should get out of our self, our mind, emotion, and will, and get into our spirit through these means. This is something basic and yet all-important for living a normal Christian life. It is elementary yet advanced. There is no graduating from this level. A believer whose mind is not subject to his spirit will at the least live a very poor life before God, and at the worst be usurped by the evil one and fall victim to sin and evil. The mind is the battleground for it is the leading part of our soul. Some are more emotional, and others are reason more. But in general, we follow our own mind, our own will. We do what we want to do. But a Christian should do God's will and follow God by exercising his spirit to contact God and become saturated with God.
With the mind, we should have an understanding of certain spiritual principles.  Firstly we should understand how the mind is a great spiritual war zone that is a constant goal for both God and Satan. Within the mind there is a constant battle. From the time you were born again your mind has been under attack. Because of this, we should always set our mind upon the spirit (Romans 8:1-2). When we do this we have life and peace and God can grow within us. When He grows in us, He spreads to all of our parts, even to our bodies.

We have to see how our minds can become useful to either God or the enemy. We have to see that we should set our mind upon the spirit, otherwise it is either in one of the parts of the soul, or it is in the flesh. Either way, we have death.
For this we need exercise and practice. Everyone who is a professional athlete is good at these two areas-exercise and practice. It is nearly impossible to become a great athlete without exercise and practice. Talent is one thing, exercise and practice are another. One could have a wonderful talent, but if he or she does not exercise that talent and practice at developing and honing it, then that talent is somewhat wasted. With regards to our spirit, it should be exercised. As Christians, our talent lies in our spirit. For this we need to take control of our minds, through our will, to exercise to live Christ and live within our spirit. We must not be distracted from this.
The young people are a wonderful example of how easily our minds can be distracted from following God. If we take some time out to "people watch" and observe the young people we can easily see how our minds can be used against us in our spiritual walk. The young people may one second be in the meeting hall enjoying God with fellow brother and sisters and the next second be in France talking about the Eiffel tower in their mind. This is just an example, it is not to talk down on the young people, for in fact this is all of our experience. Oh how easily our minds can be distracted from the spirit! Often we travel in our mind, thinking from one thought to the next. Through the fall our minds were utterly corrupted with the satanic element. This caused the mind to be connected to the flesh with it's sin. When our mind is set on the flesh it is very literally connected to sin. But we are so used to living here! This is where we are from our birth. To exercise the spirit is actually a foreign thing to us. But it is all important. Since the mind is in the middle between the flesh and our spirit, this makes it a beachhead and a battleground for spiritual warfare. If the mind is not set on the spirit, it can easily become usurped and even be used by the enemy to damage or even to kill us. When our mind is set on the flesh, or flaccid within our soul, any kind of evil can be worked out within us if we are not careful and watchful over ourselves.  This is why we constantly need to set our mind upon the spirit in the spirit's enjoyment and stay in God's life. In the spirit Satan cannot touch us. In God's life we are safe.
Through the spirit, our bodies are also in a process of being renewed through the metabolic process of transformation. This eventually brings healing to our bodies. God is a healer. Many instances within the Bible record God healing people of their sicknesses. We should see that sickness is related to sin. Many of the instances of healing recorded in the Bible are records of God healing people through forgiveness of their sins. "Go, and sin no more." (John 8:1-11) "Child, your sins have been forgiven." (John 7:36-48) "Your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:46-52). These are all instances of when Christ healed people through forgiveness. As we are forgiven, we are healed. Sometimes forgiveness is an ongoing thing. As we deal with sins, we are forgiven. Some struggle with sin, so their healing takes longer. As they struggle they become more sick, but as they are forgiven, and eventually overcome the sin, they are healed more and more. Sometimes this is how God works. Some cases are harder than others.

HOW TO STAY A HEALTHY CHRISTIAN TO SERVE GOD

HOW TO STAY HEALTHY

A recent illness prompted me to write about what one should do if they get sick. The traditional route would be to see a doctor. I don't want to dissuade anyone from this route. However if you are like many of the millions of Americans that do not have health insurance or when you did go to see a doctor all he/she did was push some pills your way then you need to pay attention to what follows. There are most definitely some actions you can take to prevent illness, and to ward off a cold or the flu in the event that you do become sick. If you are like me, and you view health from a holistic standpoint then you will want to shy away from traditional doctors and find a more natural route. It is my opinion (formulated from learning and experience) that doctors, especially in this country, are trumped up drug dealers. Now, many drugs save lives. I am on a drug called Coumadin (Warfarin). It helps with my blood clotting that I received as a gift from genetics. I almost died two years ago when a clot traveled from my right ankle up through my heart and settled in my lung. If it had gone into my brain I would be dead. The Coumadin is keeping me alive more or less. I recently found out that it is basically rat poison (Google it, or Wikipedia). In lower doses it's used to kill rats. So I'm essentially taking poison to keep me alive and un-clotted. Bad with the good right? Well, my aim is to get off this drug and onto a better anti-coagulant. But Coumadin is dirt cheap, and I still am without insurance. So it may be close to a year before I get anything better than my rat poison. But I digress.

I am preaching prevention. You need to eat right, exercise, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and take care of your teeth. If you do this your body will reward you with a long life and fruitfulness. You may say "well I'm young now and we only live once." Exactly, you only live once. Why ruin your later years by hurting your body now? D not jeopardize your later years by going crazy in your younger years. Especially with regards to your body. Which is for Christ and the church.  1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says "Flee fornication. Every sin which a man may do is outside of the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Or do you not know that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body." I believe this verse and Paul's thought relate to how we take care of our body, not just abstaining from fornication.
The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is where our soul and our human spirit are contained. The soul, composed of the mind, emotion, and the will is what we use to contact God in our human spirit. So if we damage our body, or it is weakened through illness brouth on from poor diet and or habit, then we are in turn damaging the faculties used to get to the spirit. As we know, the spirit is the goal, from which we commune and fellowship with God. If we damage our body, then we are damaging our worship area. We use our mind, emotion, and our will for expressing God and serving Him. If they are damaged then our worship of the Lord and our pursuit of Him may be jeopardized, causing us to be of less use to God and His purpose could be set back somewhat.  There is always this potential.

So it's important to build up good bodily habits from a young age (Proverbs 22:6), because this is what will keep you in your later years. If we damage our bodies now, we might have to go through many years of trying to bring our bodies back into a healthy state. It is said in science that it takes six years for your body to completely regenerate it's cells from the inside out. You body makes new cells and in six years it will be re-celled so to speak. But why not give it the proper fuel and nutrients it needs to thrive? This would go better for us in the future as we need all our bearings to fight the Christian battle and be good stewards of the grace of God (1 Peter 4:19).

Prevention is the best way to stay healthy and keep from getting sick. You don't have to have a degree in Nutrition or Natural Medicine to understand the basics of eating healthy and staying within the normal range of homeostasis and bodily pH levels. But you do need to do a little research on the subject- and its absolutely worth it! Your body health is one of your greatest assets in life, because it is the container of the Holy Spirit.

PREVENTION

Prevention on its basic level starts with what you eat and drink. What we ingest into our bodies is one of the most important things we need to control in our personal lives. The same can be said for what we inject into our mind and how we think, and feel in our spirits and souls. We need to wake up each morning and eat Jesus, drink a fair amount of water, juice, and milk, and eat a healthy breakfast consisting of fruits, lean-lowfat proteins and some grains such as organic whole wheat bread. Thoughts are important just like food and water is important. We should set our minds on the spirit (Romans 8:6) and watch our thoughts and our speech throughout the day (Matthew 15:19-20a, Ephesians 4:29).

Preventing sickness starts with eating right, but what if you can't always eat right or you often get sick for no reason? Well eating right and getting sick go hand in hand. If you eat bad, there's a good chance you will get sick more often and your body will not look and function very well. So my #1 piece of advice to anyone, sick or not, would be to change your diet and start an exercise routine. Bodily exercise is profitable for a little to Christians (1 Timothy 4:8a). We should at the least walk a few miles a day in addition to cleaning and household chores. Some of the stronger ones could do gymnastics or running and a minimal amount of lifting weights. There is no set law on this, but only a warning that too much exercise could lead to building up lust. We want to rule our bodies, not let our bodies rule us. For some this is a hard learned lesson, for others it isn't so difficult.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET SICK?

When you are sick its important to understand what your body is going through. It is fighting off a pathogen in your bloodstream that is attacking your red blood cells. The best way to fight this off is to raise your immune system. The best way to do this is to drink a lot of liquid to flush out negative toxins built up in your gut and to pour down your stomach lots of fresh fruit full of vitamin C. Vitamin C is the #1 healer out of vitamin family. It is a superhero. It raises your immune system dramatically and within hours you could be feeling better and on your way to getting over your sickness. 

You can get vitamin C in Oranges particularly and many other fruits and berries. A good multivitamin is also very important for everyday use, and when you are sick you need more vitamins and immune system fighters to help you get over your sickness.  So it helps to take more vitamins when you get sick than when you feel normal.Please take a daily vitamin and mineral supplement. If you live in a higher region on the globe, you will need to take a fish oil supplement as well for it's added vitamin D which helps regulate sleep and energy cycles. This is because those in the higher regions of the world do not get as much sunlight as do those who live closer to the equator. 

Please eat when you get sick. Even if you can't keep the food down, it's better to sip a healthy chicken broth or various other liquids. Your body needs the nutrients to fight off the pathogen.

Health and Wellness 101

HEALTHY HABITS

I am not a doctor, I will never be a doctor. But I am healthy. And healthy despite many drawbacks physically and mentally. I have had a reverse sleep cycle since 2002. This means I sleep during the day and am mostly up during the hours people are sleeping at night. This without my choice. I've had whole years so plagued by chronic fatigue syndrome that I could barely leave the house to go for a walk. To live a normal life was virtually impossible, and I literally stayed in my room all day because I was too tired to do anything else. It was tragic for my church life. People thought I was a lazy Christian and not a good person. I couldn't simply tell them that I had this sickness because it was so hard to explain. I looked normal, I talked normal, but I didn't feel normal. Fibromoralgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is one of the most misunderstood diseases known to man.

These were my worst times. But I can say that one thing was always regular, and that was the fact that besides these ailments I rarely get sick. I very rarely get head colds of the flu. I attribute this mostly and directly to the fact that I utilize a small but core knowledge of nutrition and exercise regimen to take care of myself. I also try my best to regularly eat Jesus as the spirit, which Biblically gives life to our mortal bodies ( Romans 8:11).

I have utilized extensive exercising techniques my entire life. When I was a child I remember loving to run. Running is extremely natural. If you are too overweight to run, your life needs to change. Running and walking is a part of being holistically healthy. I used to play flag football at the school near my house and I would always play wide receiver so I could run and catch the football because I loved bounding and sprinting so much. After games I would race competitively with other children barefoot in the field to see who was fastest.

I played basketball seriously for nine years that encompassed my entire teenage years. And now I lift weights and am an amateur bodybuilder.

My point in saying this is that I believe in safely challenging the body. I believe in giving the body what it wants and needs for food and exercise. I believe in safely pushing the limits of tiredness and exhaustion, at least somewhat past the point where your body tells you to stop. Often our bodies rule us, instead of us ruling our bodies. Paul says "I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest perhaps having preached to others, I myself may become disapproved." (1 Corinthians 9:27). I believe that if we do not challenge our bodies at least every week, that atrophy sets in and disease and corruption of the blood cells, bones, and muscle tissue will begin to take place.

But as we get older and we have less and less opportunity to freely exercise when we want and we have less fun doing so. Our bodies often don't want to go to the gym, or go outside for that healthy after meal walk. But who is the ruler of your body? Are you ruling, or is your body? 

In this age, it seems that it is harder and harder to eat right, and as we age, due to pollutants in the air, water, and food it is harder to stay healthy and young and vibrant. Our brain chemicals get damaged and we fail at eating right. I have failed many times at staying on a steady diet and eating healthy. I personally love junk food.  But one thing I am always learning is self discipline. We should be hard on ourselves and soft towards others. However as we get older we need to be constantly reminded of how little time we have on earth and how important it is to take care of our body. We fail and then we get back up and try again. Much like the Christian race, there is no end to first starts with our health. As long as there is breath there is hope. But don't forget about the ground you have covered already! Exercising is accumulative. Your body remembers what you did in the gym. Your muscles remember, and each time you start a program again you are further along than when you started it the first time.

EATING & DRINKING RIGHT

In much the same way that we should eat the pure Jesus, to eat anything less than organic, healthy food is not worth it. I realize that money is a key factor in this, yet I think the investment put into eating healthy and exercising regularly pays off tremendously down the road as we age. Smokers know. Alcoholics know. Those who look at these people see it. Oxidative damage, sick internal organs, and slowed mental faculties and cognition are the fruit of bad bodily habits and not exercising. We must strive to do our best to eat right, exercise, and drink the right water to be healthy and lead a full life. It is possible, if we work hard and believe in ourselves we can become a healthier people.

I would say that water is just as important if not more important than food towards our overall health. Our bodies are 90% water, and water is related to every function of the body including regeneration of cells, muscle building, waste removal, recovery, disease prevention, and energy. If you want more energy, drink healthy water. If you want to recover from an illness or a drug addiction, drink more healthy water. If you want to build strong healthy muscles, drink more healthy water. Water is paramount, crucial and key to all elements of having a healthy body.

Eating good, healthy and organic natural foods and drinking clean positively charged ion enhanced water are the most important things you can do for your physical health besides exercising. Exercising is the magic bullet of health, but food and water are the gun that gives that bullet power.

Please throw out your food charts, they are wrong. Period. You need to focus less on starches, grains, dairy, meat, etc. and more on the macro and micro nutrients found within food. And also pay great attention to the food labels on your product as well as the ingredients. You need to know what you are eating and what its going to do to your body. For starters, we as humans need protein, carbohydrates, vitamins within food, water, and rest. Eating too much can be damaging, just like eating too little can be damaging. We need to find out the best amount of food for us individually and the right combination of vitamins for our specific needs. Whatever keeps you functioning at the best level for the type of life you live is what I recommend. But this doesn't mean, that if you live a sedentary life that you don't need to eat right. NO! In all types and stations of life, everyone needs to eat correctly. The marathon runner needs to eat more than the office worker, but that doesn't mean the office worker doesn't need to eat healthy. Maybe his/her portions are less, but they still must strive to eat the highest quality ingredients available. If they don't their work performance will be poor, much like the athletes performance will be poor if he/she doesn't eat right.

THE BASICS

There are several basic things you should do as you wake up in the morning. Firstly you should call on the Lord and praise Him. "Oh Lord Jesus." Repeat. "Praise You Lord." Repeat. "Hallelujah. Thank you for this day." Repeat. "Oh, Lord give me today's supply of grace." Repeat. "Lord, I just love you." Repeat. Then get into your Bible and read it by praying over each verse. This is a great healthy habit. You can't go wrong with this habit. Then what should you do? After you have accomplished the first most important habit, the next most important habit is to drink several glasses of liquid and cook yourself a good meal. A good meal consists of lean protein (eggs are fine), a carbohydrate, and a fruit. (Fruits & Vegetables should be taken separately as much as possible). It's a good practice to eat your fruit in the morning and somewhat throughout the day and have your vegetables later in the evening and at night. At least once a day have a large salad. This will keep your bowels regular and your body looking healthy and flush. Throughout the day drink as much high quality water as you can afford. I recommend Ion & Mineral enhanced alkaline water. An alkaline water machine is a one time investment of a few thousand dollars American and about a hundred dollars a year to change the filter. It is one of the better health investments a person can make. 

Then you will need to supplement your diet with vitamins. Some people don't like to take vitamins but let's look at it this way. Today, not all food is assimilated well in our bodies. Vitamins simply make sure that we get all the much needed nutrients in our diet that we don't get in our foods. They are another very good investment for a person's health. 

The best vitamins are the ABC's. Vitamin A, Vitamin, B, and Vitamin C. A multi mineral supplement is good also. This is for organ functioning, your hair, skin, nails, and energy levels. I recommend learning about vitamins and building your own personal vitamin regimen and routine. It pays off. 

WHAT TO AVOID

There are certain foods and beverages that you will want to avoid like the plague. They are simply, downright horrible for your health. Obviously you will want to steer clear of cigarettes, alcohol, and street drugs. But did you know that Soda is nearly just as bad as these three? Outside of poison, Soda is the absolute worst thing you can put into your body. It is bad on every level. Even diet soda is cancer causing. Soda is filled with sugar and things that kill people. Please do yourself a big favor and go throw away your pop cans. Even the cans that the pop comes in leak into the pop and can cause cancer. 

Next on this list are sugary junk foods. You are not serving the saints by bringing cakes, cookies, and ice cream to a home meeting. I know, they are nice, they are good tasting, everyone loves them, but sugar is highly addictive and can cause a slew of dangerous diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and mental impairments. I know, "the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17). However, if we eat enough junk food we will not have peace nor joy in our bodies, of which contain the Holy Spirit and have much to do with our serving functions within the Church. We must try out best to abstain from too much junk food. I'm not saying that saints should not bring sweets to the home meetings. It is important to keep the oneness in the spirit. There is not rule in the Bible against eating junk food, however if you wish for the saints to be healthy bodily you might rethink some of your choices to bring to the home meetings. Fruit is a wonderful alternative to processed sugar. But it is not good to eat fruit late at night as it can keep you awake and your body excited, but it is far and away better than a sugary treat.

Our bodies do crave sugar, especially for those of us who live in the more Northern regions of the world and experience less sunlight. The long winter months can make us sad and depressed so we find ourselves eating more junk to keep our moods high. Do your best. It is a constant battle but one that can be won and maintained through proper habits and exercise. If we fall every now and then we have the blood, just like for our sins. But to some extent we should take the cross, just like we do for our sin nature, at least for the bodies sake and give our bodies to serve the Lord in their best possible way to maintain a healthy state and function. This means building positive, healthy eating habits and straying away from negative, damaging habits. I believe the Lord will show us individually how He wants us to eat to take care of our bodies. We should open to Him in this way, especially when we go shopping for He is very practical and knows the importance of a healthy body in serving in the Church.