Welcome friends to the line of fire as we are in 2025. Can you believe it? All the tumultuous events of 2024.
Wow! Here we are in 2025 and we ended the year a little differently. We are starting the new year a little differently rather than me continuing in our school of prayer with our regular daily classes. We are just taking a little break and taking you back into some messages that I preached in the past. The last two days and the old years start the new year talking about dietary change, food, lifestyle.
Yeah! New Year's resolutions. This is a great time to do it.
Diet books are like hotcakes at the beginning of the year. Nancy and I wrote a book together, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. It is spiritual.
It is practical. Many have been blessed. I love running into people on the road. Dr. Brown, I read the book you and your wife wrote. I lost 50 pounds. I am a new person in the world. My wife is being there as the husband is telling me or the wife wants to tell me or the individual comes up with their testimony. That blesses us so much because it is so hard to make these changes. If God helped us, He can help you. The last two days we played a message that I preached on Breaking the Stronghold of Food from about seven years ago.
Three years into my own lifestyle transformation. What we are going to do is after that message there was a Q&A that took place. After that message.
I am not nutritionally educated. That is Nancy's spot. She studied intensely. To this day she will listen to the latest podcast you are teaching. Just gleaning what she can.
Reading. Just trying to find the healthiest ways that we can eat to put the very best things into our body so we can be at our best for the Lord, for one another, for life in general. We need to make decisions that can aid and help within that. I know certainly you have chronic conditions that diet doesn't affect. You have a severe injury that diet doesn't affect. But so much in our lives is dramatically radically affected by diet. How you feel emotionally and how you operate physically.
It is just such a blessing with each year getting older feeling in many ways like you are getting younger. I cannot answer nutritional questions because it is not my forte. But I can answer a lot of practical questions. After the message I preached we then did Q&A. People submitted questions and one of the pastoral leaders took those questions and brought them to me. Many of you may have your own questions but we don't get to do this. We don't get to talk.
I want to take you back into the session from seven years ago. What Nancy and I recommend is that you read Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book, The End of Dieting. Eat to Live was his earlier best seller. The End of Dieting. Those with specific heart conditions. He has one on the end of heart disease.
Those with type 2 diabetes. He has one on the end of diabetes, meaning type 2 diabetes and how dietary change can bring about radical effects in your life. And then the book Nancy and I wrote, Encouraging Spiritual and Practical Steps as well.
Breaking the stronghold of foods. Those are extra resources we can put into your hands. But now let us go into the Q&A session. I will interrupt once just for our daily announcement and then go right back to it. So we will play that today and tomorrow.
So we are just going to jump right in. I love this first one. Were Adam and Eve vegans? Well it appears that the first time that meat was given is in Genesis the ninth chapter when God says that you can kill and eat. Otherwise before then it was only vegan for sure. So Genesis 1 God gives the plants and then you can eat all of this and then Genesis 9 after the flood that's the first time that it mentions eating meat. So then in the New Jerusalem in the age to come you think it's mostly the fruits of the trees kind of diet? No I imagine that we'll go out and just jump on dogs and cats and monkeys and bite them and eat them raw probably. Now I would assume so.
Why are we going to be eating animals if we have perfectly healthy stuff? I don't think there's going to be any kind of death there. So forgive my sarcasm. No I love it. I love it.
I'm a New Yorker after all. But yes so I would just assume that there's no reason for death and killing. So I would assume so.
And it does mention the tree of life and so on. Yeah right right right. How do you recommend we find the balance between legalism and gluttony? Well the first thing is I would rather be a healthy legalist than a dead glutton.
Okay. So the first thing is if I want to get free from something I know is life controlling. When God sent me free from drugs the last question in my mind was I don't want to get legalistic. So let's first deal with the issue categorically.
Make the change and then from there like any other area of life we want it to be from the inside out. Legalism is externally imposed religion. Legalism is laws without love. It's rules without relationship.
It's standards without a savior. So in this regard as well I want to understand the reason. I want to understand the motivation. I want to have a spiritual motivation that this is sinful, destructive, addicting, I need to break free. I want to have the motivation of health. And to the extent that you read up on it Nancy is far far I mean far more expert in nutrition areas than I am.
I mean a hundred to one. And then she's relied on people that have made studies of this their entire lives. So when you understand the principle okay this is unhealthy. This is going to produce all these negative things. This is going to lead to addiction. This is going to lead to this problem or that problem versus eating this is life giving.
Then you start to do it for the right reasons. So again I would first say let's not make any excuses. Let's just deal with this is wrong. Let's not worry about being legalistic right now. And for me I don't mind being legalistic in terms of sorry I won't even deviate here because if I deviate here I could deviate there and somewhere else somewhere else. But it's all out of right motivation out of the heart and life giving principles. So if you have the right heart motivation and the right knowledge based foundation it's hard to get legalistic.
It's because you know the right things you're doing for the right reasons. And then you were mentioning earlier the effects of course in the last few years on energy level and focus. Which of course would impact your spirituality because you can stay more focused on the Lord stay more focused on the word and prayer etc. But you know spiritually we always talk about feeling the presence of God and experiencing the Lord.
How has that shifted as well or would you say yes no and. Well on the one hand God's amazingly gracious and you know I was not living in willful disobedience and sin. I had an area of weakness and struggle and sometimes would be convicted on it but it's not like God saying we don't eat the cookie and I ate the cookie.
I didn't live like that all the time and maybe my heart was just hard. So I've experienced God's grace and love in the worst of times and the most unlikely times experiences presence. However there is a certain freedom that I have that ties in spiritually that I did not have before. I remember Nancy telling me when you hit your ideal weight you just you want to fly and I'd feel like that. I mean to this day I'm in the grocery store and for some reason because I'm normally you're getting produce and stuff.
When I get the shopping cart I literally want to run down the aisles I feel so light and energized. And that's transferred over right in a spiritual way as well. What it's hard to describe. But there's also no no feeling of shame.
You know that the clothes are too tight and this is uncomfortable and I've got to deal with that. Or you know again I'm not putting that anyone else I'm just saying I experienced that. So there are a lot of things that come with it that are spiritual side benefits. And I would say that my overall level of joy and spiritual vitality has definitely increased. I think I'm not so drained. I'm not having the headaches.
I'm not feeling run down all the time. So that that it does compute spiritually as well. There's no question about it. It's good good. Why is your book or how is your book different from other diet lifestyle even even Christian diet lifestyle books. What's how's this unique.
I'm sure there's a lot of fine stuff out there and there are other books by believers that are and I'm sure are excellent. But I'd say it's unique about our book first it's the two of us it's it's Nancy and it's me. And one sister just came up with me they wanted to make sure I told Nancy how essential her part of the story was. Two of the editors at the publisher were women I said look we need your wife's voice because we you know we look at food and we get heavy. You know that we relate to food differently and we lose weight differently. So the two of our voices and we have our whole stories in there.
I think that's really important. And it's spiritual and it's practical. Now we recommend that if folks want to find out more about nutrition here are other books or here are websites to go to with free information. If you're looking for recipes because it's not a diet book it's a lifestyle change book.
If you're looking for recipes here are websites where free recipes. So it's not a diet book. You're saying this is a whole lifestyle change.
Lifestyle change. It's about transforming your relationship with food with God's grace and power. So you need next steps for sure. So we list websites that are free to go to get recipes and things like that. And then books you can read to get more information. And all of that's in the book all of the websites stuff like that. Yeah all of it's in the book. And then we end the book the last couple of chapters where we lay out spiritual principles to healthy eating and lifestyle change. And then practical steps to take just on a physical level. Then Nancy's whole story then a whole appendix where she talks about how to break strongholds. And then further reading and then again websites that are free. You can go there there's one YouTube channel with one gal who holds to the same lifestyle that we do. And she's got all she makes the stuff right there on YouTube.
Here's how to follow it. So there's enough stuff available. I'm happy to have kind of the same meals every day every day for years with minimal variety. Most people are not like that. So there's a lot of stuff that's available. And here's what's amazing also. I didn't mention it in the message but a doctor told me years ago your taste buds will crave whatever you feed them. And that was hard for me to accept because I never really gave it enough chance.
But stuff I love to eat now I would have paid money not to eat in the past. Seriously. All right a quick break for an important announcement. I thank all of you. I want to thank you from the heart for standing with us. You helped us have a very strong 2024. And with your help and prayers we look forward to a very strong and healthy 2025 in which Jesus will be mightily glorified. Thank you for being part of the work part of the ministry here.
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So thank you for helping us make this broadcast possible. We go back to my Q&A session from 2017. Tell the story about going and seeing all of the fresh produce.
You said it earlier today. Oh yeah, yeah. Just bear in mind that when Nancy would send me to the grocery store, I'd be stopping. She'd say pick up certain fruits. She'd have to describe them because I didn't know what they were. He was taking pictures of fruits.
Yeah, yeah. When I was in California and at breakfast I ordered a fruit cup and it came out. I took a picture and sent it to Nancy.
I said, what are those things? She says blackberries because I'd never eaten blackberries. Then I was at someone's home and they came out with this great fruit display and I took a picture, sent it to Nancy.
What's that? She said kiwis. I remember I was overseas and there was a kiwi, a whole kiwi.
So I posted on Facebook, how do you open a kiwi? I didn't know. Are you biting? I didn't know. We got like 9,000 answers in 10 minutes.
Not quite. So I was not a fruit guy or produce guy. The other day I was in Atlanta and went to the store before speaking just to pick up some apples. As I walked in to get the apples, suddenly I saw the produce was like, whoa, look at this. They had these sliced up green and red and orange peppers and sliced up cucumbers and onions. It was like a feast.
I came back with bags of stuff from my hotel room just to feast on it. Nancy had the experience and she tells it in the book where she made the soup. She always hated mushrooms. She made the soup, mushrooms, other stuff in it. She made a massive pot of it and she went to eat it and almost gagged. Literally almost gagged. But she thought, I just made this giant pot of soup.
I can't throw it out. So she put it in containers, Tupperware containers and then put it in the freezer and froze it. About two months later, she took one of them out, heated it up and ate it. It was delicious.
So your taste buds will change. And think of this, if through a little discipline and God's help, you can now love eating healthy food, the way you loved eating unhealthy food, isn't it worth it? I used to pray it for years. I prayed, God, help me to love broccoli the way I love chocolate. But I never gave God the opportunity because I kept eating the chocolate and never touched the broccoli. And it never happened. But then once the change came, then the grace came. Wow.
This is a good one here. How do we integrate this message of honoring God with a lifestyle shift and healthy eating in the church? And do you believe that, you know, a message like this or a lifestyle like this is better purposed or better fit in the church, a responsibility of the local church? Yeah. I mean, we're stewards, right?
Yeah. We're called to be stewards over our body, over our finances, just like we do teaching on debt, teaching on giving, teaching on responsible budgets for the church, right? For God's people. Just like we seek to be stewards of our time, we need to be stewards of our bodies and health and eating. So if it's any place that it fits, it's in the church.
Yeah. You say, well, we're living in light of eternity. Yeah, but what we do on this earth has eternal impact. So we more than others know we have to give account to God, our creator. So the way we integrated this by education, that we educate about what's healthy and what's unhealthy, and then by testimony of changed lives and encouragement. Just like anything else, we hear about changed lives. We see the excitement. We're encouraged by that. And then we get educated.
And the more educated we are, a firm in saying is that knowledge trumps willpower so that when you know enough, if I knew that drinking this was going to cause cancer within six months, I wouldn't drink it no matter how thirsty I was. So we get educated. We learn about the way God made things. Again, it's a spiritual thing.
What he made is so phenomenal and mind-boggling, and the effects that it has, so mind-boggling. We get educated, and then we encourage one another with testimony, and then we're honest. There's no condemnation. Let's all be honest. Most of us have struggled in these areas. Some of us are thin. Some of us are heavy. But most of us have struggled. Let's get help together.
Yeah, good. So give us a feel for your – here is a long question with a few questions. Let me ask all of it, but it's about your typical day's menu. Give us a feel for what your typical day's menu is, but then also, added to this, do you eat fish? And if so, how many times a week?
And then just kind of break down. I know you said today you really lock in on three meals a day. So what does your typical menu look like? By the way, I've never been a fish eater over my life, but I'm sure if I want to have a little salmon or, you know, something else that would be relatively healthy, I have once a week, I have about six ounces of grilled meat. And some weeks I forget because it's just – my life doesn't revolve around it, and it's a small amount of food, the healthy foods you can eat a lot of. But, yeah, it would be fine to eat some fish or some meat, and you just – you work those things out.
But on a daily basis, because I go to sleep really late, you know, three, even four in the morning, I go to sleep, so I don't wake up early unless I have to. So mid-morning is normally when I'll eat what I'm going to eat. And if I'm on the road, I'll have different fruits. Joel Fuhrman recommends everyday G-bombs, greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, seeds.
So, again, that's all listed in the book. So try to have some berries in the morning or an apple, you know, some fruit like that, pineapple, you know, whatever, whatever fruit is available. And then just a very little bit of raw unsalted nuts.
They're healthy, they're good for healthy fats, but they're really high in calorie. And before you know it, you could be gaining weight just on nuts. If I'm home and on a full normal schedule, I'll have a giant smoothie in the morning. I put six ounces of greens in it, two ounces of kale, two ounces of lettuce, two ounces of spinach. And then I'll put in roughly like a handful of pineapple, a handful of strawberry, a handful of blueberry. And then pomegranate juice, just a little bit of that for the juice base. And then just a little bit of healthy seeds like flax or hemp, something like that.
I forget, it's like a broken up thing Nancy has. And then because I work out really intensely when I work out really heavily, I'll put a little protein powder in, pea protein, but I wouldn't recommend that otherwise, but it's only because of the super intensive workouts that I do. And then I'll have that. It takes 20 minutes or so to drink or a half hour to drink. It's massive. It's probably 300, 400 calories. And I don't want to eat again for a good five hours. Then when it's dinner time, I have a massive salad.
I mean massive. So I get a four quart bowl, the biggest bowl that we have. I take a thing of lettuce, like a package of lettuce. And interestingly, because I ate out all the time, it actually costs us less eating healthily. But even if it costs more, if we could afford it, it's worth it. And then you have a lot less medical bills.
One medical bill would cost you a whole lot. And one doctor said, you know, it's not radical to eat like this. He said what's radical is having some doctor having to put your heart on hold while they cut through your ribs and do open heart surgery because of clogged arteries.
That's radical. Eating healthily is not radical. So I will take a whole thing of lettuce, like five ounce container of lettuce, I'll dump it in, then I'll cut up a whole cucumber, a whole green pepper, a whole red pepper, ton of onions, ton of tomatoes, cup and a half of beans. I would have paid you in years past to avoid beans.
I would have fasted, I would have eaten nothing rather than have beans. I have a cup and a half of beans every day, that's where I get a lot of my protein. And then I put in like a handful of raw sunflower, pumpkin seed, and then a healthy dressing.
Nancy makes great dressings, otherwise I get the lowest fat, lowest sodium, lowest calorie that I can. And that takes me a good half hour to 45 minutes to eat that, massive. And maybe I'll have an apple after that. And then later is my dinner, the other part is very small. It could be a super healthy veggie burger. I make a pseudo pizza once a week, I use Ezekiel bread, which is a healthy bread. And I put organic red sauce and there's something, it's not cheese because I don't have dairy.
It's super healthy though and I use that instead of the cheese and then put onions, oregano on it. And it's like a feast to me now. And then after that, that's when I'll have maybe a little more nuts or something, or a healthy soup that Nancy makes.
And then she made these things instead of chocolate, like brownies made from black beans, dates, and cocoa that are totally healthy. All right, I hope that some of that was relevant for you, some of that was helpful to you. May not have answered your question, but maybe that will happen tomorrow. If it was live radio, I'd take calls, but these are prerecorded broadcasts. That's the purpose of the podcast and the broadcast, to do systematic teaching and preaching and edifying you, infusing with faith and truth and courage to help you stand strong on the front line.
So that's our goal here. But always, if you have a question that you'd like to get to us, you can always write to the ministry. Write to us at thelineoffire.org. Just go to the website and you'll see something that says contact, and that's the way to do it.
Ministries that would like us to come and speak, as we're able to do at conferences, churches. There's another forum for that. Those that are in media and need to contact us with questions, there's another forum for that.
But if you just go to thelineoffire.org, there's a generic contact where you can write to us. You'll get an automated response immediately thanking you for writing and just letting you know that we get many emails and we will get back to you. And then, as much as we're able, we'll do our best to respond theological questions, biblical questions. We have a team member. That's what he does, is answer those.
And other questions are sent directly to me for me to respond to through our team and other team members respond to. So let us be a blessing in your life. We finish up on tomorrow's broadcast.
This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are listener-supported. If we have been a blessing to you, if you're being enriched in the Word, in prayer, in your own walk with God through this broadcast, then stand with us so that we can reach many, many more and bless many, many more. Together, friends, we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and click Donate.
