If your weight has been an issue for years and you have felt utterly helpless or hopeless in your efforts to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight I want you to realize that perhaps you have more of a spiritual problem than a weight problem.

Anything that controls you rather than you controlling it becomes a major problem for Christians. Why? Because as a Christian God set you free from bondage therefore he does not want his people enslaved to ANYTHING!

See the devil never brings you what you do not want. I’ve never been an alcoholic so he isn’t going to show up with a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey and say let’s party. He knows me too well for that – but he will show up with a big box of cupcakes marked half off at the deli and say “You can eat just one and the kids can have the rest” – because thats my poison of choice. He lets us pick the poison we slowly kill ourselves with. Some choose drugs, some drown in alcohol and others eat themselves into an early grave. I’m the latter.

Ephesians 6:12  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The Temple Diet is my approach to a healthier liberated life that reframes how we “experience” food. This is not just about unwanted pounds. This is about why some of us must constantly have a chronic fight with the number on the scale. Why for some of us losing weight is akin to slaying a 50 foot, flame breathing, bone crunching, knight swallowing dragon – that we have been fighting for years and years and years. Many of us get to the point that fighting this dragon has depleted us of what God intended for our lives – the simple joy of living. I know I used to weigh 298 pounds and have lost 150 pounds in my personal fight to slay the dragon.

I killed him alright, but not by my will. My will always failed. This human body is full of weakness and after years of getting the wind knocked out of my sails over and over on a sea of diet fads and disapointments I asked for help…not from people…but from God. He faithfully transformed my eating habits, transforming my cravings, and leading me to information and people that inspired and educated me. Don’t give up. God wants to free you.

Romans 12:1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

I don’t want anyone to just “live with” their diet. I want you to “live in” your wellness. Total person wellness. One could say that if you had a physically perfect body, yet lacked spiritual joy, you would not be ultimately happy. Perhaps you could have superior intellect yet be 100 pounds overweight and lack physical health – this person also would not feel a sense of total wellness. I believe that God wants us to have that “overall wellness” that embraces all aspects of who we are. A balanced relationship between mind. body and soul that is much more important than just food choices.

1 Corinthians 6:19

¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

The Bible tells us that our body is a Temple of The Holy Spirit. This means that under the new covenant with Christ the need for the old covenant tabernacle made of wood and stone has been replaced with flesh and bone. After Christ sanctifies you, cleans you of unrighteousness the Holy Spirit actually lives inside you. This should be our main focus for living in a manner that is reverent to that fact. The Holy Spirit lives inside your earthly body doing his heavenly business and we are instructed to honor God with our bodies.

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(I Corinthians 10:31)

It will help you to focus on the Holy Spirit rather than getting your beach body by June. The “why” of this commitment should be that you want to glorify God with your body for many years to come and by being a good steward of the temple he has given you,  you can expect a long healthy life. Being fit should center around that fact alone NOT how sexy you think you need to be to conform to the world. We are not here to please the world – we are here to give God glory with our lives. The secular world focuses on our bodies objectifying them and sexualizing them in a severe form of perversion. The pagan temples of old were filled with prostitutes that engaged in all manner of perversion to pagan Gods and your temple should be kept from such blasphemous acts. You do not want your temple to represent lust or inspire fornication. You want your temple to point people towards God.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1

Physical health is fairly simple and its absence often deals with one of the worlds most popular sins – gluttony.  This sin manifests in “symptoms” such as obesity and disease. The Bible tells us that in the list of the fruit of the Spirit – the final fruit gifted us the believer is self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

There are many people in our society today who lack this fruit and we need to start by praying to the Holy Spirit to give us this fruit. You need the Holy Spirit to help you, you need him to bless you with the self control you need to overcome your flesh. Everyone has something in their life at one point or another that we desperately need the Holy Spirit to help us have the self control to defeat. Because unchecked lack of self control, blossoms into the poisonous vine of gluttony and it will choke your health out completely.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12

Food in its most simple form is a daily gift from God. A gift we should show good Discipleship with. Eat to honor God, let your food choices reflect your love for the life he has given you. Discipleship means “being disciplined by someone greater than yourself”.

The Bible talks a lot about food. I am not going to go into the dietary laws so to speak but if the whole canon of the Bible were to be broken down into a simple statement on food it would be that God gave us good food to eat because he loves us and wants us to be healthy. Secondly because God designed our bodies, he knows best what we should put into them to obtain and maintain physical wellness.

I personally find the plant-based diets of Genesis extremely healthful but this is not the only way to eat. God gave us dietary laws in Deuteronomy 28 that depict what is clean and unclean for us to eat. He lovingly detailed the optimal meats for us to consume and if you wish to adhere to these dietary laws today I feel that you are wise in doing so. Pork in particularly is meat that I feel should be avoided per Gods instructions. But and this is a big but,  if you flash forward to the New Testament where we are no longer trying to achieve holiness through works – because Jesus came and sanctified us through his work on the cross. Because of Jesus’ work on the cross we are no longer trying to be righteous by our own works and rituals – we are set free from being bound by the law in our diets. Jesus redeems us, he cleans us.

In the Old Testament man would become unclean by touching a woman for instance who was having her mensis. Flash forward to the New Testament and the woman with an issue of blood becomes clean by touching Jesus. In the earlier times her unrighteousness would make whoever she touched unclean but Jesus was so powerful, so holy even unclean things became clean when they touched him. That is where we are at now as believers – we no longer need to achieve our own righteousness through diet, or dress, or rituals, or sacrifices – Jesus made us righteous and it is complete we cannot add to it.

So we have been set free from the Old Testament biblical laws of sanctification but we are not free from the natural laws of living in a sin infected decaying world in a biological suit that is in obedience to physiological laws. For instance no matter how much you pray over the gallon of ice cream – if you eat a gallon every night you will get fat. No matter how much you pray over your supersized meal that is packed with fat and sodium if you eat these everyday you will likely gain weight, develop high blood pressure, and clog your arteries ect. But you already know that because the Holy Spirit tells you what is good for you and he also convicts us to what is destructive. The dangerous thing is when we keep ignoring him until we can’t hear his voice anymore. I want to help you change that and have a fresh annointing to hear his voice!

Some of you are screaming by this point tell me what to eat! How did you lose 150+ pounds? What can I do? – I’m going to give you a simple system and I KNOW that if you follow these things you will reach a healthy weight, you will do so easily, and you will maintain it for the rest of your life….

First and foremost – Do not make food your God. Many of you may think well I would never do that, well unfortunately many do. What is a “god” by definition. God is who we go to for comfort, for security, for pleasure. The food god replaces God when we go to the refrigerator to get a piece of cake instead of go to our knees and seek God’s comfort when we are emotionally distressed. A lot of the weight we carry is from emotional baggage that has manifested in fat. I want to see you released from that baggage today.

Secondly decide that you are not mastered by anything, and that your addiction to food will end today. I said it – TODAY.  Many of our food choices are not our own conscience efforts they are the cravings of our addictions. Sugar, perhaps is the satan of the food world. It is in everything, it is highly addictive and when your body starts running low almost instinctively you will reach for a can of soda or a cookie to get that sugar level back where your body feels comfortable. So we want to break ALL of those addictions and EVICT them from God’s Temple – TODAY!

Thirdly, start feeding God’s Temple well. Nourishing, loving, maintaining God’s Temple in a way that showcases your thankfulness for the life God gave you. Drink water. Eat more vegetables and fruits. Eat lean meats that are not breaded or fried. Eat more quality breads, the ones loaded with seeds. Replace potato chips, candy, and pastries with FRUIT. Let your food become a part of your Discipleship. Every time you eat thank God for his abundance and provision and ask him to bless his temple to edify your choices to strengthen your will against the evil of the devil. Every time humble yourself knowing that your body is not your own it has been bought with a price. Every time you feel weak or tempted pray for self-control. We know that the devil came to steal, kill, and destroy. When he comes to the Temple and tempts you remember he is there to steal your time on earth, steal your joy in living, steal your health, steal your presence from your loved ones. He wants to kill you physically. He wants to destroy God’s Temple.

To start the Temple Diet all you need to do is pray with me right now. If you are ready to lose the weight and clean the Temple of all its vices, all the stuff that is seperating you from the healthy life you were meant to live.

Heavenly Father,

We come before you today to submit our bodies as living scrifices to you as you instructed in your Word. Father through your Son Jesus Christ I have been cleansed, sanctified, set apart and annointed as a child of God. Holy Spirit I pray my body is a pleasing Temple to you that you move into every ounce of my body and bless me with your Holy Presence to uplift me, to comfort me and give me the strength and self control I need to fight the attacks of the devil and to resist his temptations. I ask you to sweep out all of the emotional baggage that I have collected in me remove it almighty Lord and replace it with your joy, your peace, your love, and your total acceptance. I ask you to remove any unforgiveness towards others, known and unknown. I ask you to pull up the root of bitterness, to remove any hard heartedness and free me from any pain that I have suffered by others cruel words or actions. My body is a beautiful holy temple created for God to live in and work through and I ask you to forgive me Father for abusing it in the past, for not caring for it in a manner that was not reverant. I ask you Lord to cleanse me of any and all sins that defile the Temple. I ask you to forgive me of all gluttony Lord God and give me the fruit of the Spirit Lord God, give me the self control of the Holy Spirit to defeat the temptations as they may come. I break all food addictions, all plans of the devil to destroy my health, I break all emotional bonds and ties to food, I break all cravings for foods that destroy me. I pray for a new appetite. I pray for new cravings, let my body seek out foods that edify my body, that feed my flesh, that bring the health to me that you have set forth as my inheritance. Walk with me, help me, talk to me Holy Spirit – SET ME FREE

in Jesus’ Holy Name we pray,

AMEN.

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(I Corinthians 10:31)

Meditate On God’s Word…

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Timothy 1:7

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Philippians 3:18-19

For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

Romans 13:14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Galatians 5:16-26

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, …

Romans 12:1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

2 Corinthians 7:1

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.