Mighty Through God, Part 1

[This message was first given at my church's Women's Retreat this weekend. It is, of course, not verbatim, but is, I hope, the essence of the message, presented in three parts at the retreat but in several more parts here; the entire message being entitled "Mighty Through God."]

The origin of this study:

"I don't really understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to – what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can't help myself, because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things." (The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans 7:15-17 TLB

For 59 years I have struggled with being overweight. (This is not an exaggeration, even my baby pictures show me as "chubby".) I have cried, prayed, begged God, dieted a thousand times, lost 40-50 pounds a hundred times over only to gain it back each time. Last year, I even considered gastric bypass surgery, going through the first segment of the post-surgery seminar given in Reno. But I could not go through with it. And all because I knew that I would be one of those "un-success" stories rather than a "success" story as a result of the bypass. I seriously and completely believed that I would find a way to regain the weight even after that surgery, because I had always eaten not because of hunger, but because food became a comfort to me very early in life. In later years, as a Christian, I felt that my over-eating was sin, but I was helpless to stop it, it seemed. I learned through the years to grow "comfortable" with my size (although I dreaded annual family reunions and have never even considered going to a class reunion!) I have a husband who loves me no matter my size, but who in recent years became concerned for my health. The doctors were really starting to get on me about just attempting to lose even 30 pounds this year. I thought to myself, I can lose 30 pounds. I went in search of a new diet, but I didn't find God in any of them, and I felt I needed God's intervention here. Because the problem was not in being hungry, it was in my head. And I knew it. I just didn't know how to deal with it.

And in just the last year alone, I began to believe that my weight was a terrible testimony of the power of God in my life, or I should say, lack of the power of God in my life. While no Christian wants sin in his or her life, I certainly would have preferred a sin that was not so obvious to one and all. So, I began praying even more earnestly for the Lord to deliver me from this sin. Every time I read scriptures that contained the word glutton or gluttony, I felt such guilt and condemnation.

Then one day, several months ago, during my morning Bible study time, I read, probably for the thousandth time, this scripture in James:

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed." (James 5:16)

And then I read this scripture:

"If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." (I John 1:6-7)

And for the first time, I took them very literally, and I determined that these were "commands" that I was to follow – actions that I was to take.

I immediately began confessing specifically the SIN OF GLUTTONY at church and asking for prayer. I submitted prayer requests often, asking for prayer for this SIN – calling it the SIN OF GLUTTONY – not calling it even an addiction or a bad habit or anything else. Just the SIN OF GLUTTONY.

I didn't see any changes, other than in my understanding of the Word of God. But then one day, someone told me about an acquaintance who goes to a church I once attended, who had lost 80 pounds in about 9 months. I was told her weight loss had occurred because of a Christian weight loss program she was participating in and eventually found out that the name of the program was PRISM. So, I went online and found their website and ordered the books they showed available. They sent them to me along with DVDs that were full of good health information. And I began following the instructions in the books.

In time I came to realize that the primary focus of the program was not diet, as much as responding with proper commitment to the authority of the program. I began to realize that I was submitting to the authority of the program as though I were submitting to God's direct authority. In fact, I believed and still do, that it was God who brought this program to my attention as:

1. the result of taking obedient action in accordance with His Word;
   
2. the result of bringing my sin into the light by my act of open confession;
   
3. the result of the body of Christ praying for me as His Word directs us to do one for another.
   

But He didn't stop there, as through this training in how to submit to authority, He began to teach me ever so much more about authority. And He began to show me the tremendous amount of rebellion there had been in my life and still was. Rebellion to all sorts of authority.

And most importantly, He began to show me what His authority truly is. And how sin is anything that is not submitted to His authority.

That's what the next several postings will be about.

By the way, I have lost over 40 pounds since I began the Prism program a little over two months ago.

But what I have found in spiritual treasure far "out-weighs" that particular benefit of weight loss.
In fact, I am finding the weight loss to be secondary to all else that the Lord is changing in my life.

Next posting will be Part 2 of
Mighty Through God
entitled "Two Kingdoms in Conflict." I'll meet you there!