Garbage In… Garbage Out!
If you think ‘religion, scripture, and politics are a difficult thing to talk about around Apostolic’s, try talking about their food! If there is one thing we Apostolic’s know about…it’s FOOD and nobody messes with our food! If we are not in church, it’s a good possibility we are somewhere sampling a morsel of meat. Now we may know food, but one thing I have stumbled upon along the way, is we have very little understanding of what all that food is doing to us. We preach against allowing things to be set before our eyes and what enters our ears, but rarely, if at all, do I ever hear anyone step into the arena of how the food we eat affects our bodies. See, what I mean, something just bowed up in you. That little voice inside of you probably said, ‘what does food have to do with anything concerning salvation or being an Apostolic?’ Well, it has NOTHING to with your salvation, at least not directly. No longer do we have to ‘worry’ about the food we eat when it comes to making it to heaven. But the last time I checked we were not supposed to be plagued with ‘all the diseases of Egypt’ and yet, compared to the world there is NO DIFFERENCE. Apostolic’s are just as sick as Egyptian’s. Many of us are plagued with high blood pressure, diabetes, and dare I say cancer. And I don’t know if this bothers you, but it bothers me because we are supposed to be the people of God and as far as I am concerned, these things ought not to be! I just don’t believe that we have to settle for less than great health not only our minds but in our bodies also.
Since the Lord pulled me out of Egypt in 1987, I have been blessed to had an opportunity to delve into the nutritional side of life (right now I am working on my Masters in Natural Healing). Over the years I have ‘learned’ many things concerning health and nutrition. I have taken many of these principles and applied them to my own life, and I have to say that they work. As of today, I have only been ‘sick’ three times in twenty-one years. So as a ‘first partaker’ of the fruit, I know first hand what works and what doesn’t. I have spent many years studying and countless dollars on ‘magic pill’ products. I have used these same principles to help others in our church and in other churches. When they are used, they work! I have taught countless ‘health’ classes in our church concerning how to take care of our ‘temples’. Many of the principles and things that I am going to write about in this article are proven and true. And I ask you….shouldn’t we be concerned about our temples? The body you are walking in is the place of residence for the Holy Ghost!
BUT before I go anywhere else I must first establish a few things.
1. I do not believe that this is a heaven or hell issue! Please do not take me wrong. You will not go to hell because of what you eat or put in your body, BUT I do believe that it is a quality of life issue. What you consume and put in your body affects you in many ways, mentally and spiritually. We understand if we put bad gas in our cars, it sputters, kicks, and knocks. Yet we never seem willing to correlate the same principle with the ‘fuel’ we put in our bodies. So many times when I try to talk about food with Apostolic’s they are quick to quote 1 Timothy chapter four and verse five…1 Tim 4:5…”For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” They immediately say how they pray over their food, yet they leave the ‘sanctified by the word of God’ part out of their discussion. We need to ask this question sometimes when we sit down to eat…is what I am getting ready to put in the temple of the Holy Ghost sanctified by the Word of God?
2. I just would like to be a help to the people of God. Right now we have a sister in church who is battling breast cancer, and she is winning the battle. It is my desire to help her win the war! Too many of us suffer needlessly, because we refuse to ‘see’ how the food we eat impacts our behavior and health. The information that follows is taken from a ‘health packet’ that I have put together over the years. It is twenty-one years of trial and error condensed into what I think are some essential ‘need to knows’. This information is really just the beginning of some basic principles and I will be the first to say that I do not know everything concerning this subject. But since we have started a new year, I thought I would provide a springboard to the saint’s of God as we ‘resolve’ to change some things this year. I also know that this information can be very overwhelming and it can make a person believe that it is impossible. So I will tell you right now… take your time. Go through the information. Glean from it what you can and apply to your lifestyle what you can. I was going to break this article into separate parts, but I decided to put it all down here at once. This would allow you the opportunity to read it all now (or copy it) and have it at your disposal.
3. The next thing I want to say before I continue on with the information is this. Whatever I say in this article has not been approved by the FDA. The principles and things that I say are just things that I have learned and are relegated to my own opinion. I believe that these principles are Godly and pure. They are spiritual principles backed by God’s Word and at this present time, we still have our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, but the law requires me to tell you the principles in this article are not intended to ‘heal or cure’ any diseases.
4. The information below has been hard to come by. Like I said, I have been blessed to have learned these things and all I want to do is share it with the saints of God. I have purposely tried to avoid anything that may look like advertising and/or promotion of any products, because that is not what this article is about. When you have a wife that was racked with pain from Fibromyalgia for four years and you find the anwer, it’s just natural to want to share this information.
Now that I have laid this foundation of understanding concerning my intent. Please take some time and read this article…it could forever change your life!
There are FIVE things that are killing Americans / Apostolic’s.
I will briefly tell you what they are and then give you a personal goal of your own to bring you back to balance in your health.
Before we break into these five things I want to set the tone for this thought!
THE HEALING IS IN THE BODY!!! What you need is already there. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and God has already put the miracle within you! Remember this point, because the devil will and probably has already played havoc with your mind concerning your health. Your body is made up of 100 trillion cells. These are life… living cells and much like the car you drive needs fuel…so does your body need fuel. This sounds kindergarten, yet some people treat their cars better than their own bodies. These billions of cells cannot function properly on DEAD food. I mean even a rabbit will not eat a cooked carrot! Therefore, if we understand the principle of reaping and sowing, it is no wonder that people are so sick in America today. When all you consume is dead, processed foods for 30 years…why is it such a shock to people when they are found full of cancer or hardened arteries? The law of reaping and sowing works both spiritually and naturally. So be not weary in WELL DOING for in due season you shall reap if you faint not! So back to the cells again…these cells are constantly renewing themselves and what are they renewing themselves on? Whatever it is that you are eating! Feed them dead, processed food all the time and how do you think your cells respond? Every seed produces its own kind. Dead foods produce dead de-energized cells. Live foods keep them healthy and functioning well. Yet the miracle is this principle! If you alter your fuel and feed your cells live living foods then your cells will begin to rebuild themselves of the good stuff. Remember, your bloodstream renews itself within every 11 months. Your organ tissues within a year or so…and so forth that within two years your body has basically become a brand new body…with its foundation only as strong as the food you fed it. So the cliche is true…GARBAGE IN… GARBAGE OUT!
There are countless testimonies of people who have lived long and happy lives only after finding this kind of information out. One man was in his 50’s and ready to die until he began to educate himself about nutrition. Well, he went on to live to 119 years of age and wrote his last nutrition book at the age of 115! There is a woman, she was a clinical doctor for 15 years and was diagnosed with cancer, yet after contemplating her predicament, she refused the establishments way of radiation/chemo treatments and turned to God and nutrition. Needless to say, she is close to 70 now and looks like she is 35! (I have purposely left off their names so as not to be seen as trying to sell you their products or ideas) YOU MUST BEGIN TO EDUCATE YOURSELF! There is a myriad of websites that are full of incredible testimonies and information concerning our health. People who were written off as terminally ill and left to die, yet today they live and they tell you how they did it! Read up and learn. EDUCATE YOURSELF! READ PEOPLE’S TESTIMONIES! The healer is already in your body. Don’t listen to the corporate world and its propaganda. I try to tell our church people that these systems do not care about us. The scripture says the love of money is the ROOT of ALL evil. The only thing they care about is shelf life because the longer a product stays on the shelf the greater chance they have to make money on it. So the process, add chemicals and mutilate our foods at our expense and we like dummy’s trust them! I hope this doesn’t offend…but we seem to put more trust in the corporate world than we do God’s dietary plan. We eat horrible foods and then wonder why we’re so sick…we blame God and shake our fist at him…why are we sick! We live in a nation where everyone is a victim…so the first step is to stop being a victim and recognize your eating mistakes and wrong choices.
Ok..Ok…I got to quit before I write a book here. 🙂
Let me give a few steps to get you started. The basics to help you on your way back to balance in your body. So here are the five basic things that is killing Americans.
1. Malnutrition is killing Americans.
Like I said dead food produces dead cells…no way around it. So you must begin to change your eating habits. Remember, THIS IS NOT A DIET…LET ME SAY IT AGAIN…THIS IS NOT A DIET. THIS IS A LIFESTYLE CHANGE!!! You need to start by changing your diet to at least 50 percent live foods. Begin to avoid animal products. Meats…red…and white…and especially PORK. I understand that food is no longer a heaven or hell issue and many have fought with me over this issue, yet to think that when you pray over your bacon then makes it clean is somewhat hocus pocus…don’t you think? If you desire meat…try fish. There is a good book out by a Dr. Colbert. He wrote a book called…What Would Jesus Eat? Very good. Very educational. If you have to have meat…try to get grain/grass-fed meats…you know where the animal led a normal life of grazing with no hormones and antibiotics pumped into it…it’s a little more expensive…but what price are you paying now???
REMEMBER
….it has taken you a long time to get where you are…it will take some time to get you out of where you are
. You will have good days and bad days. Do not be discouraged…I have taken a line that Lance Armstrong said in his recent book…it has become a motto of mine…pain is temporary…but quitting lasts forever! So run then that you might obtain!!!!
Purchase a juicer. The Champion Juicer is the most economical juicer on the market and it will keep the juice enough in tack to bring the nutrients to your cells that you need. Do not get a juicer that has a basket…the juice gets to hot and is destroyed too easily.
Here are some major things to avoid in your diet.
1. Pork…should I say more?
2. Shellfish…deep sea creatures…lobster…shrimp (ocean roaches)…these animals eat nothing but the poop and garbage of the sea and the way their digestive systems are set up means that what they eat turns to their flesh and then when you eat their flesh you get all that wonderful stuff that they ate. Just read the Old Testament dietary law…and you can have some confidence in what you are eating. Please don’t just shun this statement because we are not under the law…I know this! But the scripture also says that the law is good…it is our schoolmaster that brings us to Christ.
3. Refined sugars…most foods in America are laced with sugar, sugar, and more sugar…remember high fructose corn syrup is a sugar. High fructose corn syrup is actually the leading cause to obesity. This ingredient has the ability to bypass your stomach’s full signals and move immediately into your blood stream. This causes your body to ‘freak out’. When this sugar enters your bloodstream, your body has no choice but to turn that sugar immediately into fat. We must LEARN TO READ LABELS AND BECOME A LABEL, READERS!!! The first ingredient that you read on the label of a product is what the product has the most of. The first six ingredients are the most important to look at because this is what that product contains the most of.
4. Nutra-Sweet. This is a major killer and if you will get online and read the history of this product you will get stark raving mad and wonder who the FDA is really working for. Don’t forget, Splenda is another artificial sweetener that has not been tested and now is beginning to show its own set of health issues when people consume it on a consistent basis. A great book to read concerning sugar has been written by Dr. Mercola, ‘Sweet Deception’.
5. White refined flour products. Eat whole grain. Whole foods in their natural state. When you roll that pure white Wonder Bread in your hand and it turns all gummy…yep…that’s how it goes into your intestines and gets all caught up in there…nice huh?
6. Deli meats…these have too many chemicals in them. Two of them being nitrates and nitrites…deadly and cancerous. There are deli meat products out there that are free from these highly toxic chemicals.
7. Hydrogenated oils…partially or completely hydrogenated oils. These are things like margarine and chips…if you read the labels of many foods…most of them have these partially hydrogenated oils. But what are these? Well, let me put it this way. The chemical structure of these oils has been altered by a process called hydrogenation. The oil is heated up to about 300 degrees and this helps produce an oil in the ¡creamy state called margarine. Now, what happens when we eat these oils? I can answer that question with another question. When was the last time your body heated up to 300 degrees? Bingo…you win…you’re right your body never heats up to 300 degrees…so when we eat these hydrogenated oils…they go into our bodies and form what are called free radicals and these free radicals wreak all kind of havoc on our bodies…and the kicker is this…they need a healthy cell with oxygen in it to survive…so they kill your good cells…free radicals are a big culprit when it comes to the aging process.
One more thing regarding nutrition. It is a proven fact that our soils have been worn slap dab out…since we no longer follow God’s plan of letting the land rest for a year and pump the soils up with three basic minerals…our foods are coming to harvest lacking any strong nutritional substance. Therefore you need to get yourself on a supplement. I prefer whole food supplementation over downing hand full of vitamins that have been over-processed themselves and/or are difficult for the body to absorb. There are many whole food products out there. I myself take a whole food supplement. I won’t tell you what it is because I am not writing this article to ‘sell’ you a product, I am writing this article because we need to glorify the Lord in our bodies and in our spirits!
2. Dehydration is killing Americans. YOU MUST BEGIN TO DRINK WATER! HALF YOUR BODY WEIGHT IN OUNCES EVERYDAY. I have gotten into the habit to always have water with me…in the car…when I walk in the mall…wherever…start drinking water. Your body is 75 percent water…your brain is 85 percent water. Quit telling yourself that you are getting your water by the soda’s you drink. This is false information…these drinks are actually dehydrating you…coffee…pop…many processed juices… A lack of water in one’s diet puts an incredible amount of stress on the body. And remember to drink purified water…either steamed distilled or reverse osmosis. Tap water from the kitchen sink is a killer…and that’s a whole story in itself. :
3. Stress is killing Americans. Yes. Worry is a sin…but it’s even much more than that…it is our lifestyles. The constant running too and fro. Pressures on bills and meeting deadlines. I personally believe God never intended for us to live this way. He did tell Adam by the sweat of his brow…yet we live behind desks or the wheel of a car and the only exercise we get is walking from the house to the car and then from the car to the pulpit. Which leads me to the next thing you need to incorporate into your life. EXERCISE!!! Ah yes…that dirty word called exercise. I know the little voice in your head will tell you that you can’t, but I tell you that you MUST. Begin by walking. Get yourself a good pair of walking shoes. Go to a RUNNER’S store where people can fit you into a good shoe that fits your body frame right now. Tell them that you want to walk and you want a shoe that fits you…they’ll know what to do. Get these shoes and START WALKING!!! If you would like to be inspired, read Governor Huckabee’s book, “Stop Digging Your Grave With Your Knife and Your Fork”. Remember to start slow. If you can only walk around a block at first…then do it! But if you will stay consistent, you will walk more and more…and the more you walk…the better you will feel and the more you will want to walk!!! I just recently read a doctor who said that exercise is the first key to victory…he also said that if you were just looking to exercise to lose weight and were not willing to make exercise a life time commitment…you just needed to quit reading his article, go turn on the T.V., grab a twinkie and go sit on the couch! That’s how serious exercise is!
I am finding more and more nutritionists are coming to the conclusion that many diseases are emotion based. Another excellent read is Dr. Colbert’s book, “Deadly Emotions”. Some even believe that up to 85 percent of sickness is related to some sort of emotional stress in the client’s life. Whether it be a past hurt or trauma from parents, friends, marriage, or a traumatic experience…such things become entrenched in our persona and if we refuse to deal with them or just don’t want to deal with them…they will manifest themselves in our body through sickness and disease. Bitterness, anger, hatred….when allowed to ‘rest’ in our hearts and spirits, they end up killing us in the end. No wonder the scripture says that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine! It is a proven science that when people are joyful, their body secrets ‘healing’ chemicals in the body, but on the other hand, when stress and emotions reign in the body, then negative chemicals are released throughout the body. So if you want to heal in the body, it is vital that you search your own heart. Take an honest examination of yourself and confront any of your past issues and resolve them. You may find you were living behind prison bars and didn’t even know it!
4. Electro-magnetic are killing Americans. We are being surrounded more and more by electrical gadgets the emit light and/or radiation or some electrical impulses. How can these things NOT affect us. From microwave’s to cell phones to computers. Our bodies are becoming more and more susceptible to these frequencies. I know that many of these things have almost become necessities in this day and age we live in, but we must work harder at lessening our bodies to their exposure. If at all possible, THROW OUT YOUR MICROWAVE! As much as we enjoy it’s convenience, it is a nightmare to health. One of the first things cancer patients are told is to throw out their microwave. Not only does it destroy most of the nutritional value of your food and change its molecular structure, it also emits dangerous radiation waves into your home. If you can’t or refuse to get rid of your microwave, at least try to use it sparingly.
5. Toxins are killing Americans. Our air, ground, water, and food supply is being overwhelmed by dangerous chemicals and toxins. The more we are exposed to these toxins, the more our cells become living quarters to these deadly chemicals. From mercury fillings in our teeth to fluoride in our water supply. From pesticides in our foods to the daily intake of air pollution in our lungs…our bodies are continually being assaulted by deadly compounds. With this being the case, it is of the most important that we learn to cleanse our bodies on a yearly basis…at least once a year, if not twice a year. Learning to how to do juice and/or water fasts will help you to restore health to your body. Remember that many of our government institutions have been loosening many of its restrictions on our food supply. Allowing tumored beef and diseased meats to be sold to unsuspecting Americans who put their trust in these agencies. Many American’s are full of parasites that will not leave the body unless they are purposefully cleansed from the body. Look into obtaining all natural cleanses that will help detoxify your body’s systems.
So there are some basics…glean what you want…I hope I didn’t offend in anything that I have said…I can be pretty blunt at times…but then again the world is pretty blunt with their lies!
Most importantly…don’t forget to PRAY…ask the Lord to help you in your endeavor…HE WILL…you can’t tell me that God doesn’t desire to have his people blessed.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. (3 John 2)
OK…let’s see have I missed anything…probably…but this is a good beginner’s guide to help you get started… the first step is always the hardest… but take it because I know that God will meet your there!
