The Lord's Table~Day 55 through 60

Day 55~All Food is Acceptable

I think the title of this lesson is self-explanatory!

"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' " Mark 7:18-23

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4:1-5

Let us be people who eat whatever we want with rejoicing and thanksgiving, worshipping God in our hearts, remembering to be moderate in the amount that we eat. This is what honors the Lord and provides spiritual and physical health. TLT workbook pg180


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Day 56~How to Lose Weight...Worship

Though we will never hear this from the world, becoming free from overeating is a matter of learning how to enjoy the Lord. Freedom comes from learning how to drink Him in, how to quench our thirst in Him, how to feast our souls on Him. It is impossible to enjoy sin and enjoy teh Lrod at the same time, and those who are learning to nourish their souls and quench their thirst in Jesus are done with overeating. TLT workbook pg182

Joe writes: "The result of pursing food was weight gain, the result of pursing God is gaining a relationship with Him and learning to rely on Him." TLT workbook pg182

The four principles unpacked in this lesson are:

1. Focus: fix my eyes on Christ
2. Bow: surrender and submit to His Lordship
3. Offer: give myself to Him as a living sacrifice.
4. Enjoy: take pleasure in God and His Word.

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Day 57~Losing Weight By Delighting in the Lord

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

God will give us the desires of our heart because He will be the desire of our hearts. TLT workbook pg184

The whole key is to find ways in which our hearts rejoice in the Lord, and then explore new methods of making ourselves happy in Him. TLT workbook pg185

I desire to dwell on God's word and grow deep roots to feed upon His Word, just like I wrote about in my last post. I will delight in the Lord and find my Greatest Treasure as I return to God and turn away from sin.

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Day 58~Praise Brings Victory

An interesting story from 2 Chronicles was unpacked in this lesson. The Israelites were in battle. Jehoshaphat was the leader of God's people. And as he sought the Lord for help in the battle this is what is written...

This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. 2 Chronicles 20:15

After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: "Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever." 2 Chronicles 20:21

Did you notice the singers were teh ones who led the way?! I thought that was such a cool observation that was noted in the TLT study.

Focussing on God, His strength and power, His purposes, His sovereignty...rather then myself...reflects SURRENDER to Him! It also reflects trust and dependance on Him.

Here are some ideas on how to put this into practice (a brief summary of what was noted on pg 189 of the workbook)

• Create and seek to get away to a secret place of devotion with the Lord....make your heart glad in Him.
• Using a hymnal or praise song book read the words and sing the songs.
• Learn to use every temptation from the evil one as a stimulus to turn your heart toward praising God.
• Let it become an automatic response, over time, that when you receive bad news, you instantly worship the Lord.
• Learn to know when you fail the most, and prepare in advance to praise the Lrod instead of gratifying your flesh...preplan your victory... So we must learn to recognize the usual times when we fail, and replace them with pre-scheduled praising of the Lord.
• Count your blessings.
• Listen to music that lifts your heart in praise to God.

I loved all of the above ideas. I personally would like to carve out more times to play the piano and sing in worship to the Lord. It fills the sails of my heart as I praise the Lord:-)

Later in this lesson it was noted how prayer and praise preceded victory and freedom for Paul and Silas when they were supernaturally released from prison.

Here's a worthy goal that Mona writes about on pg 190: "Instead of eating out of habit, I will replace that with praising Him out of habit."

Day 59 & 60 were review days.... I'll write a bit about that in the next post.