Junk Food Is Poison!

I'm one of those people who eat when they are emotional. I eat anything-things I don't really want. I'll go stand in the kitchen or gaze in the cupboards and refrigerator just thinking about what I can eat next. I haven't had much success overcoming that habit and you know, food is just not helpful. It looks good. It smells good. It tastes good. It offers no warnings. It is silent, never saying , "Ahhh, I'm nutrionally bankrupt", or "I'll put a good five pounds on you if you keep eating me." 

 Unfortunately, my wrong believing-that food is comforting, or distracting, shows on the outside of me too. Lots of us show the effects of wrong believing on the outside, but even if our wrong believing has no visible effect, wrong believing always has an inner effect. I often wish I had been one of those people who could eat anything and maintain a healthy weight. However, hidden from view, my arteries would be clogging and my liver would be getting fatty all the same.

Wrong believing results in heart issues too. Wrong believing results in emotional sickness and causes broken hearts. Broken hearts may not show on the outside but broken hearts yak on and on and on inside about how screwed up you are, and wrong believing talks smack to your soul with the energy and endurance of a busted hydrant. You just can't shut them down. 

One Sunday after noon when I was a little girl, sitting on the front porch swing at my grandmother's all alone and feeling sad, I sang a Sunday School song to myself. "Come into my heart, into my heart, come in to my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today, come in to stay; come into my heart Lord Jesus."  With all the faith of a 5 year old, I believed the Jesus on the flannel board, who healed the crippled boy, divided the loaves and fishes,and loved me, would come into my heart and be my friend, and He did. Long before any Bible reading or Bible teaching could color my perception of Him. He was real to me, and seemed to grow up with me, my unconditionally loving,constant companion.

I reached adulthood without ever believing that Jesus was intimidated by the humanness in me, and so I have never deprived myself of the constant companionship of The Lord. Of course, this isn't the first time I've lived with a broken heart or walked around for years with a limping spirit either. I have learned that having Jesus as your constant companion doesn't prevent broken hearts or limping spirits,  but I have also learned, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God's definition of sin is wrong believing, and that it is wrong believing that leads to broken hearts. 

Wrong believing is unavoidable in this life. We all come to believe many lies, however, When Life Himself is living in you and you expose yourself to Him, warts and all, ultimately there are only two options-close your ears and heart and let death do it's thing, or feel the Breath of Life in you. The day that little girl  asked Jesus into her heart, He lit a flame in me that can falter, but never be extinguished. I can't produce Life in myself. He feeds the flame of Himself in me. I get to respond to His Breath of Life.

Oh the gentleness of Jesus! He's not loud and demanding. He doesn't shout and condemn. He doesn't pat His foot or roll his eyes. He doesn't tell you to "shape up" or "get a hold of yourself". He doesn't rub your nose in the mess you made. He just gently blows on the ember of His Life in you; encouraging, teasing and nurturing it into a flame until you respond to His warmth.

When we are strong enough to be shown the wrong thinking that has dampened His Flame in us He will certainly show us what we need to see like a good parent shows a child what is not safe. However living with Jesus as your companion means quickly learning that He is all about healing your heart and becoming the safe place you need. How could it be true that The Lord of Life wants you dwelling on your wrong believing or on what wrong believing has caused?  He chooses to remember your wrongs no more. There is no darkness in Him to add to yours. 

He can't wait for the opportunity to tell you, "I AM Life! I AM Living in you! Are you going to Live in me? Because I will never leave you or forsake you, but I also will never stop being Life in you, because there is no death in me!"  When Jesus is our heart's companion we have a constant source of life pulsing through us. 

Think on THIS!  Christ in us is undaunted, unchanging Life.  How silly it is to respond to any invitation to dwell on wrong believing or what it has produced in your life, when the source of Life giving believing is in us!! Rather, let's ask ourself, is what I am believing or being invited to believe producing Life in me and for me? The Creator has given us so many pictures of life and death in our world, it should not be hard to tell the difference and if it is He can show us that too. There is nothing He doesn't know!

Jesus is the only Source of right believing-believing that produces life on the inside and outside of us. When we  hear Him, come to Him, and believe Him in spite of what our yapping broken heart or other people are saying, we are like an ember getting oxygen, a tree coming to leaf, a stagnant pond purged by a freshet! He alone has the Words of Eternal Life!!  

Think on this. "The power of Life in Jesus frees us from wrong believing and all it produces! I only have this simple warning. Grab your sunglasses, because when that grave stone of wrong believing is rolled away-it's pretty darned bright out there!