Healthy Diet

Jessica Martin is the youngest of three daughters born to a prominent family in Auburn, Alabama. Her parents both came from a long line of wealth tracing back to the mid-19^th century. Her sisters are not much older than she is; they in fact all attended the same high school at one point. Her sisters were popular at school because of their beauty and family name. Jessica on the other hand was simply known as the younger sister of Cherian and Diane Martin.

Lacking attention both at home and at school, Jessica turned to her one true love, which was food. Jessica had a terrible diet. By her senior year, she was 50 pounds heavier than she was as a freshman. Jessica was not considered to be unattractive as a freshman, and she had a petite stature. Jessica was merely focused on the adulation that her older sisters received by their peers and the attention she did not.

Jessica embraced all the southern fixings she had grown accustomed to living in the Deep South. She loved fried foods; she loved the rich deserts made by their kitchen staff; she also loved all the fattening meats and traditional fixings at the Auburn Football tailgates on Saturdays. Her eating habits had gotten the attention of her family, who articulated their admonitions, but to no avail.

By the time January had come around during Jessica’s senior year of high school, she took a good look in the mirror at herself. She finally was able to see what her family had come to recognize. She had abused her body with poor food choices. As a result, she disliked the person in the mirror more than the one she despised as a high school freshman.

Jessica knew that she wanted to experience a high school prom, but she reached the conclusion that she could not get a desired date without changing her eating habits. She made up in her mind that she will lose 50 pounds in 4 months.

Jessica began working out and exercising heavily. She had their kitchen staff prepare healthy meals for her at all times. After month one, Jessica had only lost 6 pounds. She was highly disappointed at her results sense she had put forth a relentless effort to put her on track to achieving her goal. She knew that she would not be successful at this rate, so she implemented drastic measures. Jessica began forcing herself to regurgitate subsequent to consuming big meals. She continued to work out vigorously and consume water and energy drinks.

In the middle of March, Jessica began to see a dramatic change in her figure. She began receiving complements at school from her girlfriends and catching a couple of eyes by the boys. This gave her added motivation. Jessica wanted to know how far she had come by weighing herself on a scale. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the scale. Jessica had loss a staggering total of 41 pounds over 81 days. That gave her 32 days to lose 9 pounds.

Jessica continued her bulimic practices to achieve her goal. It was no longer a means to an end. Jessica had worked her way into becoming an outright bulimic. She reverted to her old eating habits because she knew that she would get rid of it through regurgitation. She even began taking laxatives without consulting a physician. She was obsessed with her figure and the fear of gaining the weight back. Jessica had no reason to discontinue her dangerous habit; after all, she looked amazing.

Jessica finally received the call she had been looking for. Thomas Payne reached out to her and asked her to the prom. She was elated by his gesture. She immediately contacted her friends and sisters to tell them the good news.

The following day, Jessica showed up to school. She noticed that her throat was a little hoarse and that she was having abdominal pain. She went to the bathroom to gather herself and was immediately overcome with faint. After collapsing onto the bathroom floor, a student found her minutes later and notified the front office. Her parents were contacted immediately and directed to meet the ambulance at the East Alabama Medical Center.

Hours later, the doctors informed Jessica’s parents that her blood sugar was extremely low and that they found signs in her throat, teeth, and on her knuckles that would suggest that their daughter was suffering bulimia nervosa. Her parents were devastated. Jessica’s kidney’s had suffered from laxative abuse, which required a week in the hospital. As a result, her unhealthy diet caused her to miss the prom that she abused her body for.  

Brothers and sisters, we can use this story to illuminate the practices of our diets in our daily lives. We pay a lot more attention to our flesh than we do our spirit; however, we can learn a valuable lesson from the fleshly diet.

When we over feed the flesh, we become overweight. When we over feed our spirit with a worldly diet, we subject our spirit-man to obesity and being overweight in sin. When this occurs, we not only empower the worldly spirit within us, we store sin like our flesh stores fat. In order to rid ourselves of sin (i.e. spiritual fat), it requires healthy dieting and exercise (i.e. The word of GOD and its practical use). We don’t have to go on binge diets like Jessica who’s depicted in the story above because GOD gave us a guaranteed nutrition plan when Jesus died for our sins at Calvary! All that is required for this nutrition plan is the desire of the heart to commit one’s self to GOD’s word and putting it to practical use. Once we follow His plan, we’ll begin to see that GOD has whipped us back into our desired Christian form! Incorporate GOD’s healthy diet today and trim the worldly fat that we know as sin.

In addition, think of how your fleshly body works in order to make sense of how our spirit works. What we put in is generally what we put out. If we feed our spirit steady doses of the world, it will only produce worldly results. If we allow ourselves to ingest a steady diet of negativity from those who love the world, wecan only expect to take on the mentality of those who love the world. If we allow things such as pornographic materials, or music that incites violence to be digested into our spirit, then we can expect fornication, adultery, and physical aggression to manifest themselves in our later actions. If we feed our spirit a steady dose of GOD’s word and Christ-like elements, our spirits will have received righteous nutrition and will project a Christ-like persona. It’s a very simple concept that we must attempt to receive less we miss our prom date with Christ in Heaven.

Today’s Beacon of Light Scriptures

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).’

I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food (Job 23:12).

Today’s Prayer:

Heavenly Father, without a healthy portion of Your spiritual nourishment, we are ill-equipped to combat the enemy. Lord we cannot win alone and we cannot defeat the enemy while we are spiritually empty. Lord we desire a healthy share of the spiritual feast that you have prepared before us and we pray that you allow it to strengthen us in mighty way O Lord… In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen…