Monday, February 18, 2013

Sunday Mind Dump (Monday Edition) & Other 411


Yesterday was a solid day at PCC.  Attendance was a little off.  The service was good.

I spoke from I Timothy 5.  This chapter covered a variety of topics such as: false teachers, seducing spirits, legalism, forbidding to marry, abstaining from certain foods, wives tales, godless myths, being a good minister, authoritatively prescribing truth to a congregation, the importance of public reading of Holy Scriptures, and expounding its truths through preaching and teaching.

Wow.  That was a lot.

One family spoke to me afterwards telling the story of their bondage to legalism and how they broke free.

Jesus plainly said what goes in to a man’s mouth does not make him unclean.  It’s what comes out of the mouth that makes him unclean (Matthew 15:11).

In Mark 7 Jesus said that what enters the mouth cannot spiritually defile us because it never enters the heart; it merely passes through the body.  (Mark 7:14-23). 

This was a liberating truth for a lot of people to learn.

We will be a couple of more weeks in the current series on Timothy.  After that and I will be team-teaching (with other men) the next sermon series on the book of James.

Gas prices have spiked about 42 cents in the last month.  There’s no end in site.  The news channel is predicting prices could continue to rise another 40 cents this spring.

At $3.65 - $3.75 a gallon right now, it’s not hard to imagine gas over $4.00 in the near future.

Recently I’ve been practicing an eating plan called Intermittent Fasting.  The idea is to drastically cut calories.  This is pattern of eating that alternates between periods of fasting and non-fasting.  There are a variety of plans.  The plan I have been on is to go all day without eating, and then only eat during a window of time.  For me that widow is between 4:00 – 8:00 p.m.  That means I go 20 hours each day without eating.

I’ve been on it for 14 days.  The first two days were easy because I was highly motivated.  The next seven days were a challenge because I felt very hungry and was having headaches.  However, the last five days were a lot easier.  I think my body has begun adapting to the new pattern; I’m not so hungry now, my headaches have abated, and the new routine is feeling more normal.

Yesterday I had lunch with a group of people after church, so I simply adjusted the window of eating for that day.  Easy enough to do.

The continuous drip of food into our bodies all day long, every day, over a life time, is not healthy. 

Aside from removing cravings for sugar and snack foods, melting the pounds away, and making it far easier to maintain a healthy body weight, there are many other scientific reasons to fast a day or two each week, or to intermittently fast several hours each day.

There’s a lot of information on the internet if you’re interested in the concept.  Just read up on the subject and form a plan that works for you.

When you begin experiencing discomfort, (like splitting headaches and a gnawing stomach), remember you are not dying.  You are only hungry.  You’ll get over it eventually.

Tomorrow’s blog: Ministry Is Spiritually Hazardous



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