Written by Cindy Smith
This week kicked off the 2020 Winter study of Taste for Truth, by Barb Raveling. It has been a very exciting week. There are so many lovely ladies involved in this study and I can already feel their excitement to be learning about renewing their minds to food, health, and weight. Let’s take a look at what we learned in our Zoom classes.
In our desire to lose weight and get healthy, we have tried so many different programs. Each new diet promises to be the ONE! We get excited and jump on board. It may work for a while but then something happens and we are right back where we started. I am so thankful you found Taste for Truth and this study. In it, we see a solution to this problem of becoming a healthy person.
The very first time I worked through Taste for Truth I did not know what to expect. Would there be restrictions, diet plans, calories to count, an exercise program to follow? What I found was that I have been thinking about weight loss all wrong. In the past, I focused on changing my behavior. If I did all the correct things I would be changed and would lose weight for the final time and keep it off. With this study, I learned that I needed to renew my mind through the use of God’s Word about my weight, what I ate, how I exercised, and how I viewed my body.
This week we looked at Our Role vs. God’s Role in this process of renewing our minds. This was so new to me and I would hazard a guess that this is new to a lot of you as well. We have all spent loads of time and effort focused on what we “NEED” to be doing but not very much time on what God CAN and WILL do. Let’s take a look at these verses and see what is our role and what is God’s role.
John 8:3-32
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (HCSB)
OUR ROLE
We are to believe in Him.
We are to continue in His word. The word continue is to mean abide, remain, be fixed.
We are to know the truth, and Jesus is that truth. By abiding and believing in Him we can know Him.
GOD’S ROLE
He sets us free through His truth, Jesus.
Here we see that the being set free is not from any of our own actions. We are set free by God. We abide, believe and know Him.
John 15:1-5
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. (HCSB)
OUR ROLE
We are to remain or abide in Jesus.
GOD’S ROLE
He removes branches that do not produce fruit
He prunes the branches that do produce fruit so that they will produce even more fruit.
He has cleaned us because of his belief in Jesus' words that he has spoken.
In this passage of Scripture our role is to simply abide. God, as the vine keeper will remove from our lives the things that need to be removed. He will work in our hearts and minds to change what needs to be changed in order to see the fruit grow in us.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. (HCSB)
OUR ROLE
Do not be conformed to this age or to what society tells us is acceptable. We discussed in the Friday morning Zoom class how society likes to tell us how to eat, what we should weigh, and judges us. These are the things we need to not be conformed to.
To seek time with the Lord through reading His Word, through prayer, and through asking the Holy Spirit for revelation.
GOD’S ROLE
He transforms us as we renew our minds. It is He who retires our brains with what He desires for us in regards to our lives.
He reveals to us His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
Here, we see that we really are in a tug of war between listening to what the world tells us is truth and God, the real truth. This pull of the world is so strong. We cannot scroll any social media app without seeing ads for diets. We have celebrities telling us what is beautiful and what to strive for as perfection. We can see just how important it is to renew our minds if we truly want freedom.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we live in the body, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way, since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ. (HCSB)
OUR ROLE
We need to recognize that this battle is spiritual and we have to fight it differently.
We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
We take our thoughts captive and make the obedient to Christ.
GOD’S ROLE
He gives the weapons we need to find this supernatural battle.
His weapons are powerful enough to demolish strongholds.
In this passage we see where the battle we have been fighting really exists. We are fighting a spiritual battle and as such we need to respond and act differently. We also have to be active. We have to be more aware of what is going on so that we can use the weapons the Lord gives us.
We all want to see ourselves walking in freedom in regards to food and our weight. Think about it, there probably isn’t a diet out there that we have not tried. Think about all the energy and effort you have put into following their rules and how in the end you were left in the same place as when you started.
Colossians 2:20-23 says it very well:
If you died with the Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?
All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are commands and doctrines of men. Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.
We are starting on a journey of renewing our minds to the things towards how we view food, our bodies, and our weight.
It is my prayer that we will look to the One who created us and lean into His Word throughout this study and feel the shackles fall off that have kept us trapped in defeat.
Continue to meditate on the verses above as we go on this journey. Let the power that the Word contains transform your mind and you will walk in freedom.
Heavenly Father, thank You that You do want to be involved in our weight loss journey. Thank You that we no longer have to try to lose weight in our power. Help us to take what we have learned this week about our role in this and Your role, and walk in it. We give You this journey and we know we can trust You to work all things out for Your glory. Amen.