Bodies In Christ - The Healthy Church Challenge Part 2

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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 in the light land. This is Mike James with Bodies in Christ, a Kingdom Health Transformation. So I'm excited to be back in here in the studio today to talk about, to really continue what we were talking about last week. And that was the Healthy Church Challenge and then also some of the things that we were going to cover. And I will say I got more feedback last week on the Healthy Church Challenge and some people reaching out saying they want to bring this to their churches.

And so that's a good thing. So I'm going to give this number right off from the top that you can text and you can text your information, your church information, and we'll reach out to you and see what we can we can do to move, you know, the body of Christ in this direction of experiencing Kingdom Health. So that number again is 336-638-1007 and just put in the text Healthy Church Challenge and any other information that I would need to know.

And I will certainly get back in touch with you. But I'm excited to be back in here today because we were talking about what was included, you know, in the Healthy Church Challenge, how we go about really helping people advance in their health according to the Word of God, and then also some of the subjects that we were going to cover. So I know last week when we stopped, we were talking about the benefits of fasting. And I'm going to get into that because that's one of the key things. And I also combine this with talking about metabolic health and how to heal your metabolism.

That was a subject all to itself a few weeks back. But that's something we're going to get into pretty deeply in this Healthy Church Challenge as well as, you know, anybody that I work with individually or in some other groups, because what I'm finding the more I look into this and really study and as I mentioned, you're getting my certification, the science behind metabolic health is one of the key factors. So I think if we can solve the issue of metabolism and getting your metabolisms healthy and resetting your metabolism, that's a big part of what it takes to move you down the road to better health. Because I know a lot of people focus on the end goal, which is losing weight, because again, doctors will tell you and you go get your checkup and they say, hey, listen, so on. So you're going to need to lose X amount of weight. I think if you lose this amount of weight, we might can reduce your amount of medication or it may drop your blood pressure or you may see your A1C numbers change if you lose a certain amount of weight. But what a lot of people find challenging is actually losing the weight because their metabolism pretty much has been turned off.

It's sick, broken. And so what it will take is resetting your metabolism. The good news is that it can be done. I venture to say everyone listening to this radio broadcast today, whether you're 12 years old or whether you're 95, your metabolism can be reset. You know, some people think we're born with certain metabolism and his metabolism is faster than mine and he can eat whatever he wants to and never gain a pound. You know, my metabolism is slower.

But see, this is the thing. Metabolism is a function of a part of function of what we eat, when we eat. A number of those different factors affects our metabolism. So, you know, I definitely feel like resetting that metabolism, healing the metabolism. That's a big part of kind of resetting the journey and then actually allowing you to move the scale where you start seeing weight coming off and then some of those other factors that we talked about fall in line as well. So last week I got to this part of it and I was talking about the different things we were going to cover. So where I left off was on the fasting front. That was one of the things that we had talked about. And, you know, in the scripture it says that some things, you know, we only come about some things through fasting and prayer. And that is true. So when you think about fasting, traditionally it's at the beginning of the year, you know, the church calls a fast and everybody goes on to Daniel fast, which is, which is good.

Daniel fast is absolutely good. You know, you abstain usually from eating meat. So you're eating vegetables and fruit and things of that nature.

And you may do one from sunup to sundown, seven to seven or something like that. And then some, some congregations may, you know, may go a 24 hour fast. Someone would go 21 days from seven to seven where you eat according to the Daniel plan.

Now this is what I found, right? And there's a reason why the Lord called for us to fast and why he says some things only come by fasting and prayer. One of course, fasting helps you to get clarity because one of the things fasting does based on whatever you're restricting or whether you're a fasting too, is it limits or it defines what you will eat. So it kind of takes that whole thought process around food and simplifies it for us because believe it or not, we think about food a lot more than we realize. It's one of the things that stays with our mind is what are we going to eat? As soon as we finish eating breakfast, we're thinking about what are we going to eat for lunch?

As soon as we finish lunch, we're thinking about what we're going to eat for dinner. So food occupies a lot of space in our minds and in our thought process. So one of the things that fasting does, it helps give us some clarity. And if we're fasting for any extended period of time, it also allows us to get closer to God, to center our focus and to be introspective to where almost in a meditative state of really, and I'll say it is really, humbling ourselves because we don't have that food as somewhat that satisfactory thing that we just get to do. Because again, food will mask a lot of things that we're feeling.

And so when we're not eating, sometimes we're facing some of those things that, wow, we may not have known that we were masking with food, which I'm going to talk about one of our sponsors a little bit later, because that's one of the areas that she deals in. But the fasting part is not only essential that you get closer to God and that you have some quiet time where you're not thinking about food all the time, but also fasting does a world of good for you health-wise. And fasting is one of the components of resetting your metabolism.

So that's one of the things we do, even in this Healthy Church Challenge, even when I'm working with someone one-on-one or any of the classes that I do as well, is that we will have a period of fasting. Because again, it's essential to reset your metabolism. It's essential to get excess glucose out of your bloodstream because that's one of the key culprits of health issues and also one of the things that keeps your metabolism from working the way that it should. And that's excess glucose in the bloodstream. So now, so fasting gives you an opportunity where you just let your digestive system rest. You're not, you know, you're not digesting food. It's not taking the energy from your brain and from other things that you're doing to digest food.

When you fast forward, you know, a little extended period of time. And what I mean by that, by an extended period of time, well, if you're fasting for more than 12 hours, then you start kicking into, okay, now your body gets into the burn fat mode where you're no longer using glucose and sugar as fuel. And now you're going into the fat reserves. Now your body starts to burn fat. Now it's using that fat to provide energy for you.

So now the longer you go past the 12 hour window, like for instance, you know, a lot of people that do intermittent fasting, one of the most popular models is the 8-16. You eat for eight hours, you fast for 16. Because now what happens, you have four hours theoretically that your body is burning stored fat. Now if you're doing this every day, eventually that starts to move your, that stored fat and starts to really reduce the amount of stored fat that you have in your system, which causes you to lose weight, to lose fat weight, adipose tissue. You're losing that fat that's stored there. So now when you fast for longer than 16 hours, then you're going into those supplies even more and more. Again, you're not using glucose as energy. So now you're burning even more fat, but most importantly as well, you're giving your system a break. Your digestive system, you're given the whole resistance because what happens a lot of times when we're constantly eating, we're constantly digesting food, we're constantly having elevated blood sugar. If we're eating most of these processed foods, they have a bunch of sugar, salt, things like that in them. So now we're constantly breaking that down and that's in our system. And what happens, we get overloaded with the sugar in our system, soft drinks, you know, different things.

It's in food, the way processed food is made. So we have an elevated level of blood sugar and that glucose has nowhere to go at the time. So eventually what happens is stored and then it becomes fat and then it also can affect our liver as well.

So it's important that all of what I'm saying right here causes the metabolism to not be able to process food the way it should be and making those energy exchanges to where you're capable of losing weight. But now once all that's reset, now you become in control of the process. I used this example one time before where you think of a thermostat versus a thermometer and that's what resetting your metabolism is like is you get control of the thermostat. You set the temperature in the room. If you want it to be 72, you set it at 72, your body adjusts accordingly, right? With the heat furnished in your home, that's the perfect example. You set it at 72, that's what happens with the heat system.

It keeps running until the temperature is 72. But when the heat system is broken, you can set the thermostat or whatever, but if the furnace is broken, it doesn't matter where you set the thermostat. The temperature is going to be whatever is going on in that room and that's the example of in the body when your metabolism is broken and it's not working, that's like that broke furnace, which you have no control now over the temperature in the room. And I hope this analogy is hitting home and it's making sense to the listening audience out there. So my prayer for you and even as we work with folks is to fix that thermostat, fix that metabolism to where you are in control of this process.

And yes, it takes time and I'm going to get into what's involved in doing that in a couple of minutes when we get back on the air, but right now we're going to go to break and then we'll come back and talk about how to fix that metabolism. If you're in need of relaxation, rejuvenation, we'll look no further than Gifted Healing Massage and Bodywork owned by Angerica Artis, a licensed massage therapist since 2021. She sees her abilities as a gift from God that's meant to be used for healing and edification. Experience the benefits of consistent massage therapy, reduce stress, relieve pain and support the body's natural healing processes. Call Angerica Artis 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. If you or your loved one are facing challenges of intellectual development of disabilities or mental health diagnosis, Choice Behavioral Health and Consultative 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. If you're in need of relaxation, rejuvenation, we'll look no further than Gifted Healing Massage and Body Work, owned by Anjurica Artis, a licensed massage therapist since 2021. She sees her abilities as a gift from God that's meant to be used for healing and edification. Experience the benefits of consistent massage therapy, reduce stress, relieve pain, and support the body's natural healing processes.

Call Anjurica Artis at 336-448-3511. All right, we're back here. And yeah, this is this is good because we want to make sure, you know, as we talk about fixing the metabolism and we're on the subject of fasting right now. And, you know, I know some people may be, you know, prediabetic, diabetic, and some people may say, well, you know, I'm a diabetic.

What about me? Can I actually fast? Now, this is what I'm going to tell you, because I'm not a doctor, I'm not a medical professional.

You know, I don't even play one on TV. I am certified in health and nutrition. But that's something you would definitely talk to your physician about because, you know, I wouldn't want to do anything or say anything that you take and say, hey, well, you know, he said to do this, he said to fast and it'd be a problem. But what I will say, most people that are diabetic or prediabetic, they watch those numbers pretty closely anyway.

So what we do as far as what we suggest you eat during those times that you are eating, it's not going to affect you, your blood sugar in a negative way in most cases. So you just monitor that during those times that you're not eating because what happened, you know, your body will put itself back in the order. And that's, and that's the beautiful thing about our bodies, the way God created us. He created us to be in a, you know, homostasis. Everybody's heard of that where there's a place, and I believe this and I call it kingdom health, that God has designed us to operate from a health standpoint. And that's where the body wants to be. Now, our part in that is to give the body what it needs to get to that state and to stay in that place. You know, that's our happy place as it relates to health. And that's what the body wants. It wants to be in that happy place. Now resetting the metabolism, all of that is a part of getting the body back into that happy place. So you can operate at a weight, at an energy level and everything else that God designed you to operate at.

And this is just getting you back to that, to that place. So again, when we talk about what you're going to eat, even during the fasting periods, because one of the things I suggest is the intermittent fasting. Yes, I do suggest that when we're doing this metabolic reset, when we're doing metabolism reset to where you do have a period that you're eating and then a period where you're not eating at all, where you're giving your body an opportunity for your digestive tract and everything that goes along with it to take a break and to be able to reset and to start from scratch as opposed to constantly being in a place of digestion and converting food to energy, to where you give your body a chance to burn some stored fat. So that's one of the reasons why we suggest that. And then there's other parts as we go along through this over a period of time where, yeah, we may do a 24 hour, 36 hour fast, and those are to really reset those buttons and buttons and pay attention to how we feel.

Because sometimes this is the thing about it. I have a number of people that go through a 36 hour fast and in 24 hours they were never hungry during the first 24 hours. And that's because they know they're fasting, right? Because a lot of this is psychological as well because yeah, we have stored fat. We have enough stored fat that lasts for most of us quite a while. So 24 hours without eating for most of us is not going to affect us at all. As a matter of fact, like I said, a lot of people, when they get to that 24 hour period, they are amazed that they haven't been hungry that whole time. Yes, you're drinking water, you know, on a consistent basis, keeping your body hydrated, but the whole need to eat. A lot of us will find that's psychological where we just feel like we need to eat. I have to eat something.

I'm always grabbing something to eat. Now, part of it is psychological. And then the other part of it is the processed food industry that feeds us the food stuff makes us hungry all the time.

The stuff they put in that, you know, when they're making these processed foods and things like that, even the ones that they claim to be healthy, they make you hungry. It's like, you know, they say you can, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And then some of you heard that saying where it's not my job to make the horse drink.

My job is to make the horse thirsty. And see, that's what the food stuff industry does. They give you the stuff that you eat that continually to make you hungry to where you feel like you got to keep eating. I got to keep eating. Part of that is because the stuff, the food stuff that's made out there has most of it has no nutritional value at all. So your body's craving nutrition and feeling like the only way I can get this nutrition is through eating. But the food stuff that you're eating doesn't have any nutritional value. So you just keep eating, eating, eating, trying to get the nutrition and you never get any nutrition. Now, what you've done is overloaded your body with glucose and other stuff that your body's not breaking down fast enough. Now it's being converted to fat. And that's where you see the weight gain coming. You know, that's where the weight gain comes in.

So it is, it's a, it's a, uh, it's a crazy game. And you know, my prayer is, as you're listening to this, that, uh, yeah, you would contact us about the healthy church challenge because we want to see if we, we want to break that cycle. We want to break it and really get us looking at food from the right perspective. You know, God laid it out for us as clear as day in Genesis 1 29. Now it takes a change of mind to eat according to his plan. And again, it doesn't have to be all the time, but most of the time eating according to what God laid out in his plan in Genesis 1 29. I say that all the time, but again, I'm a read the scripture and God said, behold, I've given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in the witch is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you. It shall be for meat or for you. It shall be for your food. That was in Genesis, right? The first chapter of the Bible verse 29. And you can always, and this is something that's, that's taught in theology and in other places is that if you want to know God's original intent for something, you go to the beginning and of course, Genesis mean, mean the beginning, and then you'll see what God's original intent was.

And for man's food, he clearly laid out what his intent was. I know all the other food they taste good and everything is, you know, we got these emotional attachments to food and it's hard to break some of those. But when we go back to his original intent, the closer we eat to that, that addresses slow metabolism or broke metabolism to where it helps to heal your metabolism. When you come back to eating closer to Genesis one 29 over a period of time, and that's what we do with the healthy church challenge as well as any of the other classes that we do is to help people get back to that, right?

You still will be able to eat some of the foods that you have attachments to, but we also want you to deal with those emotional attachments to food as well. And you know, one of our sponsors choice behavior health, I'm gonna give them a shout out right quick before we go off the air, you know, they support individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental health diagnosis founded by Crystal Nickerson, who was also called to pastoral counseling and holds a master's degree in counseling. Crystal believes that a right relationship with God, the father through Christ catapults humanity to right relationships with one another.

You can call her at 336-218-5176. That's choice behavior health. So yeah, this is how we went through fasting today. So, you know, that was one of the big things we were going to talk about as it relates to metabolic health and healing your metabolism. And remember the Healthy Church Challenge, the Healthy Church Challenge, you can reach us at 336-638-1007. Hey, I thank you all for listening. And I want everybody to keep in mind no matter where you are, you can start today. And the best truly 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 p.m. and Saturday at 9.30 a.m. for a Kingdom Health Transformation with Mike Jait on The Light. This is the Truth Network.