How do we know if we really trust Jesus or not? He's the member of the Trinity who is most like us because He knows what it's like to live as a human. If we have a trust issue with Jesus, it will affect our relationship with those we love. Several years ago, I felt like I had a trust issue with Jesus. So, I asked, "Jesus, do I trust you completely?" I sensed there was still hesitancy. So, I asked Him, "When is the first time this mistrust happened?" I asked, "Jesus, is there a wall?" He said, "Yes." "Will you show me?" "Do you really want to see it now?" This time it was His voice speaking. I said, "Yes, of course. I don't want there to be a wall between You and me."
Being prideful is not just an attitude. It's also an emotion God hates. It's the emotion that He wants us to ditch, and He tells us exactly how to do that in His Word. Pride is the foundational emotion on which all other emotions, which lead to sin, are built. Pride says, "I'm number one, the best. I'm the best. No one can measure up to the great me." It is this worship of self that God doesn't like. It can lead to greater sins and is a huge emotion we must deal with on our journeys. To acquiesce to another, whether God or another person, means we must humble ourselves and accept their point of view or suggestion. Many have a hard time doing this. Saying, "You're right" and "I'm wrong" just doesn't seem to be in our vocabularies.
God tells us that we are wonderfully and fearfully made which basically means we were created for a higher purpose, for His purpose. "I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well," (Psalm 139:14 AMP). What does that really mean? Fearfully when translated from the Hebrew means with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and with respect. Wonderfully when translated from the Hebrew means unique and set apart. God created each of us with a higher purpose than we even have knowledge of. It's His secret that He's revealing to us a little at a time until we are able to wrap our brains around the entire enchilada.
Many of us don't know what to do with our emotions so we just try to ignore them. My cure for not feeling my emotions was to overeat foods made with sugar flour. I didn't want to feel my emotions. I was running from my emotions because I was sure I would be crazy if I started to really acknowledge and feel them. God, though, loves to connect with us through our emotions. David is a great example of this as he regularly pours out his heart to God. In Psalms 63:1 TPT he said, "O God of my life, I'm lovesick for You in this weary wilderness. I thirst with the deepest longings to love You more, with cravings in my heart that can't be described."
How can we be as hungry for God as we are for sugary treats and junk food? How can we crave God instead of the things we know we shouldn't be consuming in huge quantities and causing damage to our bodies. By looking at two contrasting stories in the Bible about food, we can get some answers. The first story has to do with Eli the priest and his priestly sons. The sons were taking meat from sacrifices before they were supposed to. They were also doing other evil things. God warned Eli about it and told him if they didn't stop both Eli and his sons would die. God even gave the same message to the boy, Samuel, whom Eli was mentoring, and Samuel told it to Eli.
What should we do when our loving husband brings us our favorite candy and we have committed to not eating sugar? As a Christian weight loss coach, I've heard from many wives who are afraid of hurting his feelings if she tells him she doesn't want that anymore. She's afraid of rocking this love boat they have created. Many times, these are hard-working husbands who come home at the end of the day with a treat for their wives. It's something the husband has been doing for a long time and something the wife has always enjoyed and thanked him for. It filled her love tank to know that her husband was thinking about her and made a special stop just for her.
If pride is not dealt with, it will introduce into our lives, a bolder and more arrogant emotion called pretension. It's what pride becomes when we start believing we are invincible and don't need God. Pretension is when an inflated sense of self-importance takes over our lives. It is what strongholds are made of, which can eventually lead to addictions. This is why we need to cut pride off as quickly as we can. Humble people are never pretentious. Pretension is dangerous because we begin to believe all the good things that have happened to us have been created by our own determination and hard work.
God doesn't care if I am fat. He wants me to enjoy my life. He wants me to live, love and be happy. Food makes me happy so I'm just doing what He wants me to do. That was just an excuse and at its core it is untrue. God really doesn't care about our outward appearance. When I weighed over 430 pounds God still loved me, but He was very concerned about my health. I was going downhill fast. Many I know have died of heart issues. A heart issue was the thing that caused the cardiac surgeon to stamp an expiration date on my body and that hurt really badly. He gave me five years to live if I didn't lose weight and keep it off. That's the bad news. The good news is that was 22 years ago. By changing what I ate and still eat, I extended my life by 17 years and counting.
My family won't eat healthy. This is an excuse that I understand, and yet I think it is one of the poorest excuses. When we are blaming our bad eating habits on our families, we place all the responsibility for what we've done to ourselves on them. That is not fair to them. Blaming our weight gain on our family's eating habits is just crazy. If we are the cooks, we have the control over what we serve. We can change how we feed our families. If our families won't eat healthy, it is our fault. Not theirs.
To say we have no voice or say in what happens in our lives is an excuse for not surrendering to the Holy Spirit. We do have a voice, but it means we are just living by every whim we have and not by God. Galatians 5:16 (TPT) tells us, "As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life." This lets us know that our voices will be dynamically powerful or marked by continuous productive activity, and change in an energetic way when we make sure we have left behind our desires and cravings which seem to lead us down the wrong paths.
Follow Up
