Can God Really Help You?

Remember I wrote on day 2 that I was surprised that God brought up worship in relation to weight loss, well this was not the case with emotional healing, I was certain I understood this. How wrong I was! I learnt something that I had never truly understood before and it has transformed me.

God started to talk to me about Paul, the Apostle. He impressed upon me how Paul had changed, going from a Christian killer, to a man that could write about love. I couldn’t really connect this to emotional healing, so I asked for another name. He gave me the name John Newton, the slave trader. I realised that God was trying to tell me that these men had been emotionally healed, but I still didn’t really understand. I also felt that I would be going out on a limb trying to connect Paul and John Newton with emotional healing and weight loss. Try finding a scripture to support that!

However, as God took me deeper into this, the revelation changed me and became a defining moment in my life. So here we go!

Here’s something you probably didn’t know yesterday, according to my concordance the words emotion and emotional are not mentioned in the Bible. I was surprised by this so I looked up the definition on Wikipedia. It defines emotion as follows:

     ‘An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts and behaviour. Emotions are subjective experiences, often associated with mood, temperament, personality and disposition.’

I then looked up healing and health. Healing is the act or process of curing or of restoring to health. Health is a state of wellbeing that also includes the absence of the bad, as well as the presence of good.

I realised that God was saying that to be successful in weight loss, the whole mental and physiological state associated with feelings, thoughts and behaviour, needed restoring to a state of well being. Wow! Probably not something that can be done in a day. Or can it?

Now let’s look at Paul. Paul was a bad man. He was hunting down and approving the killing of Christians. He wasn’t even being ordered to do it; he went to the High Priest and requested supporting letters to help him do this. This man could have given Hitler a run for his money. He had to have been full of hatred, anger, bitterness and resentment. Suddenly, while heading for Damascus, he meets Jesus. Following this meeting he is transformed. I realised that the big question here was ‘Why?’ The answer to this is the key to emotional healing. So let’s examine this.

Paul’s behaviour after his experience was not what you would expect. If Paul has suddenly realised that he has been so wrong, wouldn’t you expect him to start hunting down and killing Jews, trying to reverse his previous actions and put things right. Henry VIII and Mary Tudor were both believers. Their answer to the problem of religious difference was to kill Catholics (Henry) and then Protestants (Mary). Surely this would have been the most obvious thing for Paul to do, the Paul that was so full of hatred and anger.

Alternately, maybe he would have been so weighed down by guilt, that he would have spent the rest of his life in a state of depression, repenting and trying to make amends. After all, he has realised how wrong he was, he thought he was working for God, but he was working against him. I’d be sorry, wouldn’t you? Not to mention embarrassed and a bit worried about what was going to happen to me.

Or maybe he would have given in to pride. After all he had been working really hard for God, it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t known the truth. Why hadn’t he been shown earlier, why hadn’t Jesus come to find him and made him one of his twelve disciples? There were not many people better qualified, particularly the lot he did choose, fishermen and a tax collector for crying out loud.

None of the above happened, it was something completely different. Paul emerged as one of the greatest Apostles and writers of the early church. He wrote the chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13. How could a man so full of hatred understand and write about perfect love? Neither did he feel guilty; he wrote that there is no condemnation in Jesus. He certainly didn’t appear to have a problem with pride. He was prepared to undergo hardship, humble himself and lay down his life if necessary.

What happened to change Paul so dramatically?

Was it because he met Jesus? The answer is ‘No’. Many people met Jesus, including Satan. Not all of them were transformed; in fact many of those that met him hated and rejected him, even conspiring to kill him. It isn’t enough to meet Jesus.

Was it because he believed that Jesus was the Son of God? Again the answer is ‘No’. Many people believe (then and now) that Jesus was the Son of God, but they don’t become like Paul. Satan met Jesus and believed that he was the Son of God, but he didn’t start writing about love.

The revelation that changed Paul, the same thing that changed John Newton (the slave trader) was GRACE. Paul suddenly understood grace and it changed him.

Paul was emotionally healed through a revelation (understanding) of God’s Grace.

In Acts 20:24, Paul states that he was given the task of testifying the gospel of God’s grace. Paul ‘got’ grace and was then sent out to preach it. God’s grace is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God loved everyone so much that he sacrificed his son Jesus to pay the price for our wrongdoings, this was grace. We are saved by faith in what Jesus did. We can’t save ourselves and we can’t bear the burden of trying. Grace is so wonderful because it doesn’t matter what you have done, Jesus puts it all right. It is nearly too good to be true, that’s the Gospel.

We live in a performance based world. We are judged on everything we do. We are always striving to perform well, try a little harder next time, and learn from our mistakes. We trust in our own efforts.

It’s time for a change. It’s time to stop relying on yourself and start trusting and relying on God. You can try all you like, but you can’t save yourself and you can’t do everything right in life. It is beyond your ability.

How many diets have you been on in your life? Do you start each one with a new determination to get it right this time? Do you think that it is all down to how much effort you make? Does success depend upon your will power and discipline? Every time you fail do you resolve to try harder next time? Are you trying and trying and trying and trying? How many times have you tried?

It’s time to stop trying. It’s time to stop thinking that you have to do it all on your own. Actually, I take that last but one sentence back; it’s not time to stop trying. It’s time to try one more thing. Grace!

It’s time to give in and give it to God. Stop trusting in yourself. You can’t do it yourself, you’ve proved that.

God loves you. He sent his son to die for you to set you free. Why would he withhold any good thing from you? Put your faith in the grace of God. By his grace, through faith, you are saved, your prayers are answered and your needs are met. God will help you lose weight, by his grace through your faith.

When you have started to lose weight, people will come up to you and ask you how you did it. Here is what you are going to say;

      “It’s not what I did, it’s what Jesus did”

Let’s pray;   
Lord I praise you for your glorious grace, which you have freely given in Jesus. I ask for a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I may come to know you better and truly understand your grace. Set me free from a performance mentality. Help me to understand that it is nothing that I can do, but all that Jesus did. As I go about my day, please reveal to me your grace. Lord I am asking you for grace to understand grace. In Jesus name, Amen

Today:

Today is a gift from God. Enjoy it; it is through God’s grace. (AND STOP TRYING!!)