Bodies In Christ - The Healthy Church Challenge

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The thief comes to kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. Bodies in Christ. It is time for Kingdom Health Transformation with Mike James. Good afternoon, good afternoon out there in the light land.

This is Mike James with Bodies in Christ, a Kingdom Health Transformation. And we're glad to be in the studio to talk to you today. Hopefully everybody's had a great week and looking forward to a great weekend. I'm excited about what we're going to talk about today.

As a matter of fact, it's going to be a conversation because I've gotten some feedback and I appreciate all of the feedback and people asking questions about the Healthy Church Challenge, which I'm going to go over some of the things that we're going to cover in our Healthy Church Challenge. Again, if you want to reach out to me, you can text me at 336-638-1007 or get our Wellness Guide. You can get that absolutely free. You can download that at www.5keys.live.

That's www.5keys.live. And get our free guide in reference to how to start the journey, getting your metabolism healed, losing weight, and getting on the road to healing your metabolism, as well as really addressing some other things as well. So back into the Healthy Church Challenge that I'm going to talk about today, because again, we've been getting feedback and people asking questions. Well, what is it about?

What are you doing? And again, if you are a pastor or you're part of a congregation out there and would like to see your congregation get involved in the Healthy Church Challenge, again, you can text me at 336-638-1007. But one of the things, it's a 12-week transformation challenge for different churches. We have a couple of churches that we're working with right now. So we're going to work with a limited number of churches during this period of time, but do call that number or text that number would be better.

And I'll definitely get back with you with more details. But what we cover in those during that period of time is basically some of the principles that I was led to teach on and walk through people in my class on as it relates to restoring your health and kind of jump-starting things and putting things on track to experience what I call Kingdom Health. So the first thing, and this is one of the things that I want everybody out there to really, you know, hear me when I say this, God does have a plan for your health. See, God really has a plan for every area of our lives.

There's a plan for it. It's in the Word. The Bible is our instruction book, our blueprint to living a more abundant life. So 3 John 2, I'm going to start with, start with that scripture. Most of you out there know that, which says, Beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers. So that's God's desire for you as you go through this life as a believer. It's for your soul to prosper even as your health prosper, your health to prosper even as your soul prospers. So your health to prosper even as your soul prospers.

So the two are, the two go hand in hand as you learn and grow in grace and grow in the Word of God. He also wants you to prosper in your health because you can carry out the mission when your health is prospering as well as your soul. And so when we talk about that, there's some other things we have to look at because one of the things that will hinder our health from prospering as our soul prospers is food and food choices. So what I like to do in this whole Healthy Church Challenge is walk people through the process of choosing food, right? Because it is a choice. Every time we put something in our mouth sometimes that we can think of it this way, you know, is this something that's building me up or something that's tearing me down?

Is this something that's energizing me or something that's taking energy away? If it's something that's benefiting me or something that's not beneficial to me. So those are things that, you know, just choices as we eat. And again, it's just like setting one side up on the other. Like you have the, you draw a little T and you say, okay, these are the pros and cons of doing X, Y, Z, and then figure out if you want to do something or not.

Well, you can do that with eating, right? Eating and whatever you drink, you have a little T set up and then it's like, okay, my choices. And you look at each side and what kind of choice was it? And you put them on each side.

The more you have on the side that's beneficial, the better off you're going to be. I know I'm making this simplistic and it sounds like a real simple thing, but it does come down to the choices that we make. So now how do we put food in this proper place? Because there's it, there is a place for food. Place for food.

Yes. Nourishment, enjoyment, celebration. There's a lot we do around food and it's okay for us to do those things around food and to have food, you know, as a, as, as really as a means of communication and fellowship, a number of different things that we do with food. But how do we put food in its proper place to where it's not out of place, right? Because there's an old saying that goes, yes, fire is not good or bad. In a fireplace, keeping you warm, put wood on it.

It's great. It's where it needs to be. In your curtains, fire is a whole different story, right? So that's what we want to do is make sure that we keep food in its proper place. So yes, we can still enjoy it, but you know, there's a time and place for everything under the sun. And so we just want to put food in its proper place. And that's one of the things we do in the Healthy Church Challenge is to help those and those going through the challenge to learn how to, for just from a mindset standpoint, put food in the proper place. And then that's dealing with a big part of the battle is making sure food is in its proper place. Now, one of the big issues around food, and this is the third thing we look at in the Healthy Church Challenge is emotional eating. And how do we overcome emotional eating? How do we deal with that?

What are some of the best practices? And those are some of the things we look at as well. Of course, one of our sponsors, you all have heard or hear before, if you've listened to the program over time, Choice Behavior Health and Crystal Nickerson really went into what they do from a mental health standpoint. What we do in the Healthy Church Challenge is to help you see how to, even if you know that you're eating emotionally, yes, we want to use the Word of God to move you out of that space to where you're not eating emotionally as much.

And then, if possible, not at all. But if you are eating emotionally, what we try to do is help you to make better choices as far as what you're eating when you find yourself eating emotionally. Now, the beautiful thing about Crystal Nickerson and what she shared with Choice Behavior Health is her thing from a mental health professional standpoint goes into what you're thinking when you're eating emotionally and then dealing with the root cause, dealing with those thoughts, which is, you know, that's a whole other level.

But that's what they do. But we help you to, you know, replace the food, right? How do we think about the food? Okay, if you're going to emotionally eat because some things are going to be beyond what we can deal with in, you know, the Healthy Church Challenge setting. Now, of course, we know this being believers is that God has the power to heal whatever's going on emotionally.

He can definitely deal with that. So, yes, there's an area where, yes, we can pray. We can touch and agree. We can speak the word that by stripes, we're healed. And that applies to emotional healing as well to prayerfully be able to move on from that and take emotional eating out of as far as being one of those areas that we may tend to struggle with, right? We want to deal with that, get that out of the way. But that is one of the things that we cover in the Healthy Church Challenge.

Now, how do you win? How do you win that battle and then move forward? You know, we focus on that as well, where we see, you know, not looking at those things which are behind us, but pressing forward to those things that are before us that we press towards the mark of the hard calling in God in Christ Jesus, right? We use the scripture to help anchor everything we do in the word. So it is not just what I think being a licensed and certified health and nutrition coach, you know, it's not just that.

I'm also a minister of the gospel. So it's not just the science that we're talking about, but it is good to understand the science behind eating, you know, metabolism, what you need to eat, you know, when to eat and all those things. That's important because what it will do, it will line up with, you know, what God has in his word and why there's instructions in the word on how to eat, what to eat, when to eat, and then how we apply those things and see God's best manifest in our bodies. It's what I call is what I call kingdom health.

So how to win, how to move forward. That's one of the things we'll talk about in the Healthy Church Challenge as well. So now a big part of all of this, when it comes to dealing with health wellness, because it's something that's, you know, prevalent in our community is, you know, health challenges, right? You know, we know that there's a lot of different things that go on. My family experienced a lot of it, you know, growing up and I went over my family history, you know, a while back when we started the radio broadcast. And some of you all have the same type family history, but a lot of times, of course, doctors will ask you about your family history.

Also, if you're doing an insurance application, they'll ask you about your family history, but your family history doesn't necessarily determine where you will end up. You have a lot to say in that. And a lot of that comes down to just changing some things as it relates to, you know, food as it relates to how you look at food. So that's what we talk about next in the healthy church challenges, how to change your mind, right?

How to change your mind, because that's, that's 90% of this is changing your mind. So we, we look at that and we have scriptural basis for that where, you know, in Romans 12, one and two, you know, the word talks about not to be conformed. You know, I beseech you by the mercies of God that we present our bodies a living sacrifice, right? Holy acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service and not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. So again, we have the scriptures Romans 12, one and two, it gives us the foundation for changing our minds because we don't have to conform.

Right. And there's a lot that's out there that's asking us to conform. There's a lot that's out there asking us to conform. So now one of the things I'll tell you even today, you know, anyone out there listening, the sooner you can get yourself away from, get out of the habit of eating, constantly eating ultra processed foods, right?

What do I mean by that? Some of it is labeled as junk food. The reason why they label it junk food, because it has no nutritional value. What your body's looking for every time you eat something is looking to be nourished from it. It's looking for nutrients. It's looking for minerals. It's looking for protein. It's looking for carbohydrates.

It's looking for, you know, those things that's going to help your body function. So we're going to get back into changing your mind, what it takes to change your mind, how to actually operate in that vein, so that you can move on to the next step. So we'll be back here just in a couple minutes, but, and we'll talk about those. If you or your loved one are facing challenges of intellectual development of disabilities or mental health diagnosis, Choice Behavioral Health and Consultive Services understand, and they're here for you. Crystal Nickerson, owner and director, has been called by God into the role of pastoral counseling. She believes that the right relationship with God can transform lives, fostering right relationships with one another. Call her today at 336-218-5176, where faith meets compassionate care.

at 336-448-3511. If you're tired of living with pain, Crawford Chiropractic Clinic has been serving the Greensboro community for 30 years, helping patients recover from accidents and promoting overall health. Their compassionate team is there to support you and your journey to wellness. With Crawford Chiropractic, you're not just a patient, you're family. Remember at Crawford Chiropractic Clinic, they've got your back.

Visit them and experience the difference. Call 336-373-8344 and online at CrawfordChiro.com. All right, we're back. We're back again. This is Mike James with Bodies in Christ, a Kingdom Health Transformation. And today we're talking about the Healthy Church Challenge that some of you all asked about. I mentioned it a few weeks ago, and we have some churches that are participating. So I just wanted to go over what we're doing in the Healthy Church Challenge and encouraging you, if you're a member of a church or if you're a pastor and you hear this on the radio right now, and you feel like it would be beneficial to the congregation to move in this vein and to go through just the process of focusing on health for a little bit, then you can definitely text 336-638-1007. And then also you can start with our guide as well, keys to biblical health, the keys to kingdom health, five keys at www.fivekeys.live.

That's the number five, K-E-Y-S.L-I-V-E. So we were talking about just changing your mind, because that's one of the key components in this Healthy Church Challenge and really embarking upon a new way of doing things as it relates to health. So the mind is a wonderful and powerful tool, right? So how do you change your mind? How do you believe something different or how do you come to think differently about something that's going to be beneficial, like kingdom health? So one, you have to get faith for it. So you have to get faith for experiencing this kingdom health that I'm talking about.

But now we know the Word says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so one of the things about this Healthy Church Challenge is we use the Word of God because we know faith comes by hearing, but you have to hear something related to your health or kingdom health enough until you get faith for it. Because again, we got to renew the mind. We got to renew the mind. That's the big part of this is renewing the mind.

We can't think the same because if we think the same, we're going to do the same. So the, one of these keys here is how do we change? So we get into that in the Healthy Church Challenge of renewing the mind, getting a new mindset, putting information around you.

That's congruent with where you are going, not where you have been, but where you are going, making sure that you have information in front of you. That's inspiring you to go to the next level, educating yourself around the areas of health, wellness, and kingdom health. So now the next thing we look at, because this is again, a big component of it, is how to eat, how to eat according to God's plan. And see, God has a plan for eating. He has a eating plan for eating. He has a eating plan for us.

And it's found in the Bible. It's actually found in the first book of the Bible is found in Genesis chapter one and verse 29, where that's clear instructions on what man is to eat. Now, what we do in the Healthy Church Challenge is we implement his eating plan, but we do it in a way, because again, we got to renew your mind first. So that's why that step is before this one is we renew the mind so that now we can eat according to God's plan. Now we do this for a while so that you can experience the change that comes about in your body when you're eating the way God intended.

And I always say this, when you want to find out God's intention, you go back to Genesis, you go back to the beginning and you can get a clear picture of God's intention. Now, one of the things that I found through my own experience is once I started eating, according to Genesis 1 29, my whole health change went to another level, which I thought I was in good health before then, because I had made some adjustments, was doing some different things. But until I started eating, according to Genesis 1 29, I had no idea it opened up a whole different level of health, what I call Kingdom Health.

So what we do in the Healthy Church Challenge is help you move towards eating that way. Again, not that it's going to be easy at first, because we're creatures of habit. We have emotional ties to certain foods and certain things, and our bodies really have become addicted to sugar and salt. And so it takes a little bit to get us out of that addictive state and to get those salts and sugars out of our bodies, I mean, period. And then we start experiencing all of these nutrients and minerals and all of the good stuff and food that God intended us to experience. And we feel a totally different way.

We experience health at a totally different level. So we walk you through that process again. This is what I say, too. And it's not that you're you're going to be unable to eat those things that you love and some of the things that you you have these emotional ties to and, you know, they bring back memories and everything else. Yeah, there's a time and place for that. And then if you eat according to the plan. And we can, you know, you can still have some of those things, but again, it's time and place. You say, hey, you can have those things, time and place.

And we teach you that as well. We walk you through how to navigate that to where you experience a kingdom of health and still enjoying your food, because you will enjoy food even on this level. So now the next part of this comes down to like exercise. And exercising is one of those things where I don't I don't really I don't really go into what type of exercise you need to do.

And, you know, I don't go heavy into that. I do have some partners that are, you know, fitness experts and they can come up with routines for you and things like that. What I encourage you to do is to move.

Right? Move. You don't have to necessarily go out and join a gym or buy, you know, special equipment or anything else like that. You know, you can walk around your yard. You can walk in your neighborhood. You can walk in the house. You can stand in place and move while you're watching TV, whatever it is. But my, what I encourage you to do is to be conscious about moving and then to make sure you move on a regular basis. Right? You're not stationary for too long.

That's important. Movement. Now get you something to track steps. That's one of the things I really encourage people to do and getting 10,000 steps a day, however you have to do it. Again, you know, whether it's walking on a track, you know, or the school somewhere near where you live, like I said, walking around your house, walking in the yard, gardening, cutting, grass, whatever it is, but just move enough. Or like I said, you can be marching and placing in your living room, just moving enough to where you work yourself up to getting at least 10,000 steps in, however you choose to get them.

So movement is important. And that's one of the things we, we talk about in a healthy church challenge. And then the other thing we talk about is fasting.

See, there's, you know, of course, Matthew 17, 20, and 21, Jesus talked to his disciples about some things only come about through fasting and prayer. Right? So we, we talk about the discipline of fasting and how to fast, when to fast and the purpose of it.

Right? One prayerfully, you fast prayerfully when you want things to move, a God to move on your behalf. But then also there's some health benefits to fasting as well, which we get into that. So now this is the thing I'm going to share with you today. I thought I was going to be able to get through, you know, all 12 of these things that's involved in the healthy church challenge, but I think I got to about seven of them.

So what I'll do on our next episode is finish those other five and kind of walk you through that. But listen, reach out Healthy Church Challenge 336-638-1007. Be blessed and remember, the best is yet to come. Beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers. Tune in every Thursday at 3 30 PM and Saturday at 9 30 AM for a Kingdom Health Transformation with Mike Jai on the light.