Are you in a flurry today? Are you busily cleaning your home, pulling together the last minute shopping lists, beginning even to prepare a bit early all that is necessary for a house full of guests? Or perhaps you are busy getting the kids (and husband?) packed for a road trip to go to the relatives’ for Christmas. This season…these days just preceding Christmas…are so jammed with BUSY-ness for so many of us! And in our flurry, our spirits and souls get worked into a tizzy so easily. We can even get agitated and irritable…all in keeping with “the spirit of the season!” Go figure!
Imagine that as you are busy doing all your preparations, your husband or kids or someone who is supposed to be helping you is sitting on her bum with her bible open…serene look on her face. And all while you are working, knocking yourself out for others! Boy, that would be tough to stomach, wouldn’t it?
Martha had trouble with it, too.
Today’s lesson in The Lord’s Table workbook piggy-backs well on to the message to “Seek First God and His Kingdom” from yesterday.
The author has the participant look deeply at the Mary and Martha passage. There is a lot there. Jesus, after all, in verse 42 says that Martha is worried and bothered about so many things (can you relate?), but only one thing is necessary. Apparently, Mary had chosen that one thing–to sit at the Lord’s feet, to be still and know.
I don’t want to “ruin” this lesson for those of you who may be going through the workbook or may be considering purchasing it, but this is so rich, I don’t want anyone left out! I will just include teasers here. I found this study very rich and encouraging.
Being still and sitting at the Master’s feet:
1. Indicates humility.
One of the things that is at the top of my personal list when someone asks me “What made the difference for you this time when you began to ‘do’ Thin Within? Why has it ‘worked’ this time after all the years of failure before?” And I have to say that God has brought home the message that my pride is what causes me to grab at more food than is my allotted portion. So doing what I can to retrain an attitude of humility is vital. Mind you, I don’t always succeed, but one reason why I have a gratitude blog is to keep myself aware of the fact that God is God and I am not. This helps me to be humble. I don’t tend to grab for MY “rights,” MY way, MY food or insist that this is MY body quite so frequently when I intentionally try to esteem God as God and take a posture of appropriate lowliness. Not self-debasement. That isn’t what the Lord wants, but of an awareness that I am the clay and HE is the potter.
2. Indicates Submission
When I sit at the feet of Jesus each day and throughout the day ask Him humbly what HIS will in this moment, for this conversation, how he wants me to spend my energies, I am saying I am willing to do what He says. He is my authority. I am surrendering my will to His. Scriptures say that when I submit to the Lord, I will have peace. I have found this to be true.
3. Indicates a spirit of LEARNING
I have done this Thin Within thing for a long time. I collaborated on the book with the Hallidays and co-wrote the first release of the Thin Within workbook (which has since been edited by many talented others). I literally “wrote the book” if you will. I don’t say that in arrogance, as God called me to do that before I had strung together two victorious days in a row. I was still struggling in habitual sin and didn’t have a clue.
That said, I have found that I have so much to learn. This isn’t about eating, weight, and all of that. It is about following hard after the Lord. This is a lifetime journey. It doesn’t end. Ever. I have so much to learn. In humility, with a spirit of submission, I want to follow Mary’s example and choose to learn from Jesus. There is peace in that place.
4. Incidates Faith. The very fact that Mary sat at Jesus’ feet indicates that she believed something was going to happen…that she was on the edge of her seat, if you will. She anticipated being transformed, growing…How like Mary I want to be. I want to believe Jesus and what He says is true now. I want to believe him for what he says he is doing…I want to wait on him and anticipate all that he promises to come to fulfillment.
Mike Cleveland points out that it is by faith that we gain victory over our sin. I have to believe that if I deny my flesh that God is taking this as a deposit in changing, transforming my character–not just my body.
5. Indicates a Holding to His Teaching
I am to hear, believe and obey like Mary did. John 8 says that if I hear, believe, and obey, I will know the truth and the truth will set me free.
6. Indicates a Loving of the Lord Jesus
I want to pursue a love relationship with him as my one holy obsession. I want to grow to know Him more. As I do, I know I can’t help but to love him more. As I love him more, I want to be humble, submit, learn from, believe, and hold to his teaching…it is a big wonderful cycle that infuses more love into my heart for him which in turn infuses more willingness to surrender and obey.
All which comes by “doing” this “one thing.” Sitting at his feet.
I want to sit at his feet each morning, but God is also showing me that throughout the day, even in the midst of moving my own feet, being about my own busy-ness, I can still my heart and know that He is God, rekindle my awareness of Him. The Soul Revolution 60-60 experiment is a great way to do this…and it helps a lot.
Starting my day with a focused time with the Lord helps me so very much. I am so thankful that He is ever mindful of me.
I have an insane, neurotic golden retriever. I think she was a puppy mill puppy…too much inbreeding or something that messed with her head. We rescued her when she was 7 months old. She really has all kinds of bizarre behaviors. Just now she reminded me of myself…
…she likes to sit right UNDER the wood burning stove. In fact, she sits so close to it that she has singed her eyebrows every year we have had her. I don’t know if she gets such comfort being near the heat or what it is.
Frankly, I think she sits there because she wants to be sure that if any reflections or lights or shadows “escape” from the fire, she is there to chase them down. She is obsessed by lights, reflections and shadows. Things without substance.
She is so drawn to whatever it is, that she doesn’t sense that being that close to the fire is *harmful*. There is something about being there that she so fixates on that she misses this important thing. Whatever reward there is for her in being near the fire, there are potentially devastating detriments. She could singe not just her eyebrows, but her fur and skin.
How like her I am…I tend to play, rest, nestle in too close to the fire, fixating on something that has my attention, failing to be vigilant–often, I fixate on something that is sin…or at the very least lacks substance and in my fixation I fail to see how near the fire I am and the potential consequences to my lack of vigilance.
Today’s lesson in The Lord’s Table workbook deals with this very issue. I found it especially pertinent as I look toward the end of my fasting of sweets to the Lord. I have been obsessing about this. Am I not playing too close to the fire, perhaps? I am obsessing about this when maybe God just wants me to keep a good distance from *FIRE* and allow HIM to fill my vision. Instead of fixating on things that lack substance–all the what IFs–maybe just cling to Him and heed his call. If Daisy, our golden retriever, would listen to us and stay away from the fire, she wouldn’t have to worry about being burned.
If I choose in the days ahead to allow the LORD to fill my vision, if I turn away from what ifs and obsessive thoughts about “Can I handle it?” I am convinced he will show me the way, HIS way…to enjoy the blessings he offers without being burned by my lack of vigilance.
The objective of today’s lesson is to increase our awareness of the purpose of sin and the devil. We must know that they are out to devour and consume us. (TLT, p. 131)
I want to stand clear of the fire and focus on the Lord.
Therefore, let us not expend energy thinking about food; that is, counting calories, reading labels, or fixating on food in any other manner. It is far more important that we consider how we may fatten up our souls that it is how we may slim down our bodies. Food and our physical bodies are temporary. Eat in moderation, enjoy what you eat, and then get on with what is truly of value–pursuing intimacy with Jesus Christ. (TLT, p. 132)
It is ironic, isn’t it? Yesterday’s lesson was about pursuing pleasure for all I am worth! Pleasure in the Lord, that is…true soul satisfying pleasure! That lesson was fun to write about as I know that the Lord truly does “deliver!”
Today’s lesson is a reminder that this road–LIFE–will be filled with suffering. In fact, I am called to suffer. Eek! Who likes to be reminded of that! The focus passage for the lesson is below though the author uses a different translation:
1Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body,
arm yourselves also with the same attitude,
because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
2As a result,
he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires,
but rather for the will of God.
3For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do
—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies,
carousing and detestable idolatry.
4They think it strange that you do not
plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation,
and they heap abuse on you.
– 1 Peter 4:1-4 (NIV)
I don’t know about you, but any time I deny myself what I want, that is SUFFERING to me! Seriously…if I want something, how often do I tend to say no to myself about it? For years, I have taught my kids that they have to restrain their desires. As little toddlers, they couldn’t grab food off of shelves at the supermarket or take the toy they wanted and play with it in the aisle at ToysRUs (for instance). They couldn’t hit a playmate when the desire came along. They had to say NO to themselves or they would have ME saying NO to them in a big way. We simply can’t have everything we want!
Why do I hold my kids to a higher standard of behavior–a more rigid expectation that they will learn to deny themselves–than I hold myself?!
I seem to expect less of myself in this area than I do of my kids!
“No, you can’t have another hour of ‘screen time’–you already get two hours on the computer each day.”
“No, you can only have one soda…you don’t need another one…” and so on.
Meanwhile, they aren’t idiots. They see the inconsistencies between how I train them and how I live. They think becoming an adult is when you no longer have to say NO to your self! That is what I have taught them!
Jesus suffered in His body so that I literally would not *have* to sin. I could be free from idolatry, from greed, from gluttony…from any sin (and the accompanying shame). He did this so I could literally have the freedom to say no to sin.
Likewise, I am called to do my share of “suffering.” To say no to self.
I don’t believe this passage teaches that we can live a totally 100% sanctified “holy” life practically on this earth. For me, I see it as a moment-by-moment struggle: he who has suffered in his body is done with sin–to ME this is in the moment. In THIS moment, if I choose to say NO to my fleshly desires (for food when I am not hungry, for instance) I suffer…maybe not physically so much, but I am so used to having my way, that a part of me emotionally feels let down. I have a temper tantrum of sorts. As I push through this moment, I will come out the other side of the temptation “done with sin.” In that moment, I am done with it.
What is my motivation to say no to the flesh? To suffer? Is it so I can have “body beautiful” and get lots of praise and encouragement? No. It is so that I can do the will of God, as mentioned in verse 2. What is so cool about this, is it goes back to the truth taught in Day 36…God nourishes His people. When? When we know his will and DO it!
So, it is clear here…it is HIS will that I suffer by saying no to my fleshly desires. As I do this moment-by-moment, he nourishes my SOUL. He sustains, He provides, He empowers…how cool is that?
What do you need to say no to your flesh about today?
We are to chase hard after pleasure. Yes! You read right!
The catch is…the fact that we were made for God and specifically to worship Him, we are most delighted in our seeking after pleasure when we chase hard after the pleasure found in the Lord–it is the only true satisfying pleasure we will be able find.
But get this…John Piper, who is the premier encourager of this philosophy in modern Christianity, also teaches that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. (Visit this link to read more from John Piper’s website.)
I love that this is truth. (John Piper calls this “Christian Hedonism.”)
Today’s lesson pointed out that this journey isn’t about squelching our pleasure. This is easy for me to see right now. When I sense the Lord saying, “This…this…this…surrender this…” and I do and then we move on to another “This…this…this…surrender this…” I could easily end up feeling…well, RIPPED OFF!
But He is showing me that the joy and delight and pleasure and satisfaction that I have tried to find in diet soda and sweets (for instance) was never satisfied…never realized…there was always a longing for more…they couldn’t do it for me. It is Him. HIM. He alone can satisfy the longing. He IS pleasure! Delight! Satisfaction and joy!
So as I relinquish my food, my drink, my ______ to the Lord, it isn’t about giving up. It is about that “making room” concept again. Making room for HIM, for TRUE joy, delight and pleasure to flood my heart like a wave!
Today’s lesson in The Lord’s Table workbook offered a variety of scriptures to look up and respond to…all about the pleasure found in the Lord.
HE PROMISES TO BE OUR JOY, OUR DELIGHT. If we chase hard after Him, seeking pleasure in HIM, we will not be disappointed!
Let’s not be Eeyore Christians who wander around, heads down, “Thanks for noticing…” “I am just suffering for the Lord…it is sooooo wonderful. Praise the Lord…” (All said with that low “Eeyore” sort of voice that is totally lack-luster and devoid of sincerity…)
Let’s rejoice that God is revealing Himself to us! He is making HIS PRESENCE, POWER, and PROVISION known! As we become empty, he floods all the empty places of our lives. There is no room for longing except for more of Him and He answers gladly that call!
What can so motivate my heart with love and joy that I don’t want to go back to overeating? We have a Savior Who has come to us in passion! He has come not only to suffer and die to remove the penalty of our sins, but to live in our hearts and ravish us with love. Oh, how He does delight the soul and stir the affections. Oh how pleasurable it is to live in love with Him. (TLT, p. 125)
Once we taste of the joy that is found in Him we won’t want to go back to the pleasures of overeating. (TLT, p. 126)
1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3And everyone went to his own town to register. 4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea,
to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5He went there to register with Mary,
who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.
– Luke 2:1-7
I have been realizing more and more how much I give the Lord the “stable” of my life, rather than room in my heart. HE IS LORD! and yet I relegate him to the left overs, the ugly place, the place that isn’t desireable.
I cling to so many things that I can’t possibly have room for him in my heart. My heart is brimming with all my “must haves” and “don’t touch God!” things! This is so sad and only recently have I begun to be willing to release my death grip on these things that I previously held more than dear. I didn’t realize just how much I was allowing these things to crowd Jesus out of my heart and off into the stable.
Allowing God to finally have diet soda..in all forms (even caffeine free)…has been a huge thing to me. It has almost been 7 weeks and God has shown me that by clearing this stronghold out of my heart that his blessings abound. I feel better than I have in over 20 years! I am convinced that aspartame was definitely a stronghold and it was wreaking havoc with me spiritually AND physically!
But during my time of releasing this to the Lord, I replaced that constant sweet flavor going into my system (I drank diet cherry pepsi or diet 7-up ALL the time!) with having a lure to more sweet foods all the time. So it has been evident that SWEET tasting things have been the primary stronghold for me…probably the same that it always has been. I have just now gotten around to dealing with this. It amazes me it took me so long!
So Monday morning, God called me to fast all sweet foods. I had planned on this being just until Sunday night, but now I think it would be most fitting if it was at least through Christmas Eve. My desire is that I will be able to have restraint once I do stop the fasting of sweets.
Some might be concerned that this is legalism and returning to a yoke of slavery. I just have to say that I have found this to be SO far from the truth for me. I have found in this “restriction” a place of total freedom I haven’t experienced in a LONG time…if ever! I really am blown away that by “making room” for the Lord in my heart, He has so completely flooded me with joy. The releasing of these things has been like the lifting of a burden!
Ephesians 3:16-17a says: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
This is what I am experiencing! I am so blessed! That as I have made room for Christ, he is dwelling in my heart and I am experiencing the abundance of his riches and power in my inner being. It is true that as I respond in obedience to God’s will, I AM strengthened! Praise God!
According to Strong’s Exhaustive concordance, the word “dwell” means:
1) to dwell, settle 1a) metaph. divine powers, influences, etc., are said to dwell in his soul, to pervade, prompt, govern it 2) to dwell in, inhabit 2a) God is said to dwell in the temple, i.e. to be always present for worshippers
This thrills my heart all the more. Jesus can settle down into my heart, pervade, prompt and govern my soul, inhabit it, and always be present there for me to worship Him…
The key, simply…make room.
How about you? Is there some reason that Jesus doesn’t have room in the “inn” of your heart? Do you find yourself relegating him to the “stable?”
I promise you that if you clear out room for him, release your hold on that to which you cling, He will move in and take up residence–joy, peace, confidence, strength will come with His presence.
No, it isn’t easy. I had huge battles with releasing diet soda to the Lord…but he enabled me (and continues to enable me) to stick it out…and the joy, peace, confidence, strength, delight…is all so very worth it.
John 8:31-32 says: To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
When we know His will and do it…we know the TRUTH and are set free! It is worth it!
Today’s lesson was basically a piggy back on to yesterday’s. The Lord nourishes us through his word and our application of it, so the author offered scripture after scripture with the question being: “Think on [the scripture] and write down how you will apply them in your life…”
I won’t share any more on this lesson here, but rather share something else that God has laid on my heart in a new journal entry.
Who do you think you are? Do you think of yourself as a fat person? A slob? A glutton? Or do you embrace the identity that Christ died to attribute to you, to infuse into your reality? If you have identified Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you are a saint, saved by grace, a part of a royal priesthood, a daughter (or son) of the King, holy and precious, redeemed and called before the foundation of the earth!
So who DO you think you are?
When I was training for marathons, I embraced the identity of “runner.” Because of who I felt I was, the shoes I wore on my feet *all* the time were different. (There are certain shoes that identify a person as a runner. :-)) I wore certain clothes with specific labels and logos. I read certain books and had certain types of magazines sent to my home. I ate a specific way and specific things…sometimes even on the run! Not many people do that if they aren’t training for a long run!
When I thought of myself as a glutton, do you know how I lived? I lived like I *was* a glutton. I hid myself behind baggy clothes, sat on my rear a lot, didn’t want to go anywhere and definitely did NOT run, let alone eat on the run. I ate in the car, ate standing in the kitchen, ate all the time…after all I was convinced I was undisciplined and a sloth. So…well, I lived like I was.
We are likely to LIVE like that which we believe we ARE.
This is a truth taught in scripture and it is highlighted in the Thin Within book and in this lesson of The Lord’s Table workbook, as well.
When the Lord takes over a life, he doesn’t just save us from eternal judgment. He saves us from what we have been. He attributes to us an entirely NEW identity. Sure we struggle with sin at times, but our sin DOES NOT DEFINE US. GOD defines us!
Here is a truth, though. The same grace that brings salvation also teaches us to say no to ungodliness. There will be, babystep by babystep, progress toward living a more surrendered life. The Lord’s Spirit imparted to us ensures this is so.
So sure, we WERE gluttons. We WERE sloths. But NO MORE! You may argue “But I KNOW I am a glutton and a sloth! I prove it all day every day!”
I challenge you…embrace the identity that GOD has imparted to you. BELIEVE GOD. (Notice I didn’t say believe IN God!). Believe what HE says is true about you. That HE CHOSE you before the foundation of the earth to be holy and blameless in His sight. In LOVE he predestined YOU to be adopted as His precious child! If you believe these things, what GOD says to be true of you, you will be amazed at how your actions will line up with these beliefs. I have seen it in my own life and I know you can see it in yours, too!
Christians are no longer who they used to be. (TLT, p. 119)
We do what is according to our nature. If we are sinners who are trying to be good we will inevitably fall. But if we are saints, who occasionally stumble and sin, then our nature is such that we hate sin, and our habitual pattern of life will be to walk in righteousness. (TLT, p. 119)
We should no longer see ourselves as overeaters…instead, come up with names that we can use to identify ourselves with our “new man!” (TLT, p. 120)
If we are in Christ we are not who or what we were. My identity is not in being a fat person any longer. (TLT, p. 120)
If we are not feeding on God’s Word our spiritual strength begins to wane, we become malnourished…If we weaken spiritually we lose our resolve to fight, we have no strength to overcome temptation, and we settle in to living under the power of sin… (TLT, p. 115)
If you have followed the blog here for any length of time, you may realize that while having lost 100 pounds and kept it off for over a year, I nevertheless don’t feel like “the work is done.” There is definitely some work to be done in my heart and mind. It is like the inside of the glutton still lives on, even though the body physically is where it should be. I know there *have* been many changes, but I see just how perilously close I am to becoming what I once was, I guess. My weakness is so clearly before me.
This really came home over the weekend. I felt no resolve. I was weakened and did “settle in” to a way of life I have resisted (by the skin of my teeth) for a long while. I spent a good deal of time processing yesterday’s lesson on perseverance (though I didn’t write that process here…I wrote about it at the Thin Within forums, instead).
One at a time, I have to stop leaning so hard on the crutches in my life. The only crutch that I want is my relationship with Jesus. He is to be my strength, my nourishment, that which I look toward, my soul delights in…I came face to face with how much this was NOT happening. I was excited about cookies, donuts, ice cream. There is nothing wrong with these things, but I was beginning to live for them again. I could see it. So, I felt the Lord’s leading to give these things…all of them to him for a week. It seems so silly now…making such a huge deal of it here. But it HAS been a HUGE deal to me!
Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. – 1 Corinthians 6:12
I don’t want anything to master me except God. I want one Holy Obsession…HIM. Him alone.
Today’s lesson is a reiteration that the foundation of The Lord’s Table is that the Lord is the Bread of Life. Coming to Him to allow myself to be nourished will satisfy me in the deep places where I hunger.
However, this lesson goes a bit deeper. To read the Word isn’t enough. I have to DO what it says. So when I read 1 Corithians 6:12, for instance, and sense in my heart that there is something that has mastered me…(in my case “sweets”)…I have something I am called to do about it.
It is not just reading “the words of faith” that causes us to be nourished, but rather the applying of them to our lives. (TLT, p. 116)
Jesus said that his food was to do the will of Him who sent Him (John 4:31-34). How much more do I need to depend on this “food”…which is to do God’s will. When I sense what God’s will is, I am to act, to do it. Then my heart is nourished, my soul will flourish. Then I will be strengthened spiritually, as physical food nourishes physically, to be able to do the things I need to, such as to resist temptation…to say “No” to eating outside of godly parameters, for instance.
In order to live right, which certainly includes eating right, we must grow spiritually. In order to grow we must take in nourishment. We are nourished by God’s Word as we read and obey it and do God’s will. It is this application of Scripture, or the doing of God’s will, that brings nourishment to us. (TLT, p. 116)
What is God’s will for you right now? Will you do the hard thing and choose to do it? If you do His will, you will experience a deep nourishment in your soul that strengthens you to continue to make difficult (but God-honoring choices). It is worth it. I have seen this in my own life in recent days as I have given up my HUGE dependency on diet soda and, yesterday, going without indulging my desire for sugary foods. There is something that happens deep in a heart when we do what God lays on our hearts to do.
For me, this is part of my “making room for Him” this Christmas. I have allowed so many other things to crowd out room for Him in my heart. The choices I have been led to make are things I have heard Him asking me to do for a LONG time and have resisted. As I have resisted, I have weakened…there has been less resolve. Truly as if I am starving for nourishment.
But now, as I have chosen to do the hard thing, as I have taken a step of faith to offer more of myself to him (even with resentment at times), there has been a strengthening deep within. What this lesson teaches IS true…there is a nourishment that is infused into the deeper places of my heart when I DO what I know God is calling me to do. When I read His Word and apply it.
It is my prayer that whatever it is God may be calling you to do to honor Him and to make room for Him in your life, you will do it…and be doubly enriched, encouraged and blessed…NOURISHED!
First of all, let me challenge the common definition of “progress.” If we were on a diet, or a weight loss plan or rogram, then “progress” would be defined as losing weight. After all, that is the purpose of the diet, and without weight loss we have made no progress. But we are not on a mere diet; we are making healthy changes in our whole lifestyle (spiritual and physical) so, progress should be defined as purposely enjoying the Lord, eating in a disciplined manner every day, making sure we get a moderate amount of exercise and remaining accountable for these life habits. (TLT, p. 111)
If you count progress as developing a lifestyle that honors the Lord, and now persist in your newly developed lifestyle [of 1.) Delighting the Soul 2.) Disciplining the Body 3.) Developing accountability — mentioned previously], you will lose the weight and you will keep it off. Learn to focus on habits and lifestyle, not on rapid weight loss and temporary progress. (TLT, p.112)
His strength is made perfect in our weakness, and we can do all things through Him including persevere. Will you? (TLT, p. 113)
