Pastor Mike Shreve recently addressed the importance of lining up with our Master Chef’s nutrition plan for keeping our bodies healthy, because “we are called to be good stewards over this dwelling place of God by doing everything within our power to keep it healthy.” On Shreve Ministries’ Facebook page, he wrote:
“I tell those who belligerently claim that eating healthy doesn’t matter, ‘Go ahead! Pray over your food. Then check the chemical content and see if the toxic elements are gone.’ I would dare to say, probably 100% of the time they are still there. So is it faith or presumption? Is it trusting God or tempting God? In some cases, people have little or no choice in the matter because of a variety of reasons, but when God gives you the option of making right lifestyle choices, run with the vision of a healthier, happier life. Once knowledge comes, responsibility follows close behind. To lazily cram anything in our mouths the flesh craves even if it’s poisonous to the human body is another way of defiling the temple of God. We have been bought with a price. Our bodies now belong to God, and we are called to be good stewards over this dwelling place of God by doing everything within our power to keep it healthy. If we do our part, Yahweh-Rapha (the Lord our healer) will do his. If you go back to Exodus 15 where God revealed that redemptive name, (1) He didn’t just promise to heal sicknesses; He promised preservation from disease, and (2) it hinged on the Israelites eating according to God’s directives…”
I fully agree with Pastor Shreve and have often pondered why we, the body of Christ, do not put equal emphasis on what goes into our mouths as we put on what comes out of them. Generally speaking, we seem to understand Proverbs 18:21 in the context of what we speak: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” But what about also considering “death and life” regarding which foods we will allow our tongues to taste, and then eating the “fruit” designed to heal our bodies and not hurt them?
Considering that God doesn’t ‘miss a beat’ and, therefore, covers every area of our lives, it seems easy enough to understand that He created an optimum plan, involving nutrition and exercise, for preserving the human body from disease and healing sickness within it. For instance, according to Mark Hyman, M.D., “the vast array of colors in vegetables represents over 25,000 beneficial chemicals.” Twenty five thousand beneficial chemicals? Does that level of nutrition not point directly to the Hands of God? Actually, this high number doesn’t totally surprise me, because I know our Creator is One of abundance and deeply cares about our every need, including our nutrition. In the first book of the Bible, in Genesis 1:29, He explains: “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” He continues in Genesis 1:30: “And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
Clearly, healthy food matters to God, so why does it not matter much to so many of His children? Are we, as adults, like the young children at the dinner table refusing to eat vegetables even though their parents have prepared this nutritious food type that will help them grow healthy and strong? Are we resisting the same way with our Heavenly Parent when it comes to our veggies that He provides from His green earth? Just in case we need this friendly reminder:- The benefits of eating veggies are not limited to the health of young children.
“Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate over 800 varieties of plant foods,” Dr. Hyman explains in Skip the Pharmacy and Hit Your Farmacy for Abundant Health. “Today, we don’t even consume a fraction of that amount,” he continues. “We need to make an extra effort to eat many different foods to get the full range of benefits. Remember: eat the rainbow,” because as stated above, there are “25,000 beneficial chemicals” in our edible “rainbow.”
Need Dr. Hyman to give another hard-to-resist reason for getting serious about healthy eating to preserve and heal our temples?
“Shifting from a nutrient-poor diet to a nutrient-rich diet abundant in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains improves the expression of hundreds of genes that control insulin function and obesity,” Dr. Hyman states in The One Diet That Can Cure Most Disease: Part 1. “If you are constantly putting in information that is making your body toxic, sick, and fat—hyper-processed industrial junk food, sugar, flour, chemicals, additives, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, artificial sweeteners, inflammatory foods, or what I call anti-nutrients—it acts like poison in the body. It inflames your gut and your cells leading to whole-body inflammation that you experience as pain, allergies, headaches, fatigue, and depression and that leads to weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease.”
Still not convinced or inspired to replace “anti-nutrients” with nutrients that The Master Nutritionist has created for our well-being? Perhaps this thought from Dr. Hyman will help get you going: “Think of your genes as the software that runs everything in your body!”
Pause, and prayerfully think about that!
Next, press on these “keys” from Dr. Hyman: “Just like your computer software, your genes only do what you instruct them to do with the stroke of your keyboard. The foods you eat are the keystrokes that send messages to your genes telling them what to do—creating health or disease. Imagine what messages you are sending with a double cheeseburger, large fries, and a 48-ounce cola. Then consider what messages you might send instead with deep red wild salmon, braised greens, and brown rice.”
So, children of God, what are you going to eat next? As for me, I’m off to make an organic mixed greens salad topped with juicy orange slices and grapes…and plumped up with healthy fat — avocado, nuts, and seeds…and moistened a bit with Raw Coconut Vinegar. I may even throw some wild berries in there for fun.
May we not only think before we speak, but also think before we eat!
