By: Chris V I've heard tons of people say that being healthy sometimes doesn't matter as a Christian. We're in Christ and that's all that matters, right? I beg to differ. While it's most important to remember Jesus's sacrifice on the cross for us and our sins, to become sanctified through Christ in our daily lives, and glorify and serve Him with our lives, it's also important to take care of the bodies He made for us. Why? Check out the three points below. Your Body: God's Creation Your body is God's creation. In Psalm 139:14, we read "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." God created you, a person who was fearfully AND wonderfully made by the King of the Universe! His creation praises Him and screams His glory. Taking care of His creation (your body) brings glory to Him! Your Body: a Temple to God In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, it says, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." What does this mean? As Christians, the Holy Spirit (God, which is a part of the trinity) is with us and in us, helping us grow in Christ. Our bodies are a temple (a place where someone or something is worshiped) to God. We need to take care of our bodies because they're a place of worship to God! Your Body: Bringing Glory to God As seen through the two previous points, the main reason we should take care of our bodies is to bring glory to God. When we take care of our bodies with a healthy lifestyle with the right mindset, we bring glory to God. First Corinthians 10:31 says, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." When we take care of our bodies for God, we do it for His glory! As Christians, is there any other reason better than that? How can I live a healthy lifestyle? The first thing that needs to be done when choosing to live a healthy lifestyle is to cultivate the right mindset. What is the right mindset? Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle not because of you and your body, but because you want to glorify Christ. Again, we're told in 1 Corinthians 10:31 to do all things for the glory of God. The same thing applies to health and living a healthy lifestyle: do it for the glory of God! So, what are a couple of ways we can start to live a healthy lifestyle? Here are two ways:
Want to learn more about cultivating a healthy lifestyle through a Christian perspective? Check out a podcast episode I did a few months ago with my friend Kara on health here! Also, be sure to check out her Instagram page, @kandtheway, here for more healthy living tips from a Christian perspective! I'd love to hear from you! What are some ways you can start living a healthy lifestyle today? Let me know in the comments below!
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By: JuliannaDear Father, The clock is ticking on my school year, and May is right around the corner. In some ways, it feels like it can’t come soon enough. School is hard and I’m tired. But I’m also nervous. May also means the end of the structured routine of high school and an endless world of possibilities in which I somehow have to find my place. Almost every day, I get asked that same old question: “What are you going to do?” I know people are only being kind, but they expect every graduate like me to have the rest of our lives planned out! (Or at least our college and degree plan). A lot of my friends have nice-sounding answers like “I’m going to Baylor to study communications and plan to be a journalist” or at least, “I’m working in the family business.” But I know most of those friends will probably change their plans if they’re anything like me. Lord, in a sense, I want to carry this weight instead of being apathetic. I don’t want to waste my life or make a wrong decision that would impact my ability to serve you. That’s probably my greatest fear: what if I choose the wrong option and miss out on your plan for me? I wish the New Testament had more detailed plans for grads like me, but I’m left with a lot of wondering … and prayer … and the need to follow the Spirit, which I know is better anyway. Despite my fear, I know it isn’t possible to make the wrong decision so long as I am seeking to faithfully serve you. Of course, your Word does give some specific directions to women. I know in Titus 2 you want me to develop a heart for the home, to recognize that I can start loving my future husband and children right now in the way that I learn to faithfully serve my own family. Help me use these years after high school to nurture a love for children and to fight the lie that serving at home doesn’t count as ministry. Whether you call me to go to college or work or ministry at church or the countless other options, may I never be ashamed of the role you have given me as a woman. I’m also reminded that the season before I’m married, if that’s God’s will, is a unique time of being able to be “anxious about the things of the Lord” to “be holy in both body and spirit.” You’ve given me more energy and undistracted time to serve you than I may ever have again in my life. Lord, help me not to waste this season but give my all to serve you. Lord, I pray you would help me nurture a heart for women. Whether I’m married or single, one of my primary callings as a woman is to encourage and be encouraged by women (Titus 2:2). I’m encouraged to know I have a place in the Great Commission calling to teach all that Christ has commanded. My role as a woman in that calling is crucial because some of those commands are specific to women and require women’s discipleship! Help me love the younger girls in my life, as well as my siblings, and seek to live in a way that points them to Christ. I’m also thankful for my parents and other godly older women in my life who can help direct me. I pray you’d give me the humility and courage to approach them, ask questions, and glean from their wisdom. Give them the willingness to invest in my life and confirm the giftings and calling you are giving to me. I’m so often blind to my own weaknesses and even strengths; help me lean into my parents and mentors to gain wisdom. Lord, wherever you call me, whatever the challenges or joys, disappointments or blessings, I want to be able to pray what Moses prayed: “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight …And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Ex. 33:12-15). Lord, you have promised that your presence will be with me. My desire is simply that, wherever you take me, whatever work or school or location you call me, you would go with me. I hold to your promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). Amen. Some resources for high schoolers/grads:
This blog post originally appears on Julianna's blog Whole Hearted. You can find the original post here. (Reposted with permission.) I'd love to hear from you! What's one way you can apply Julianna's blog post on graduating in your life? What's something you're praying to God about in your transitioning stages of life? Tell me in the comments below!
Image credit: http://biblebootcamp1.blogspot.com/2010/07/nehemiah-12-esther-job-5-queen-of.html By: Chris V Most people, even non-Christians, have heard of Esther and her story. Esther was a young Jewish woman in the Old Testament of the Bible who became queen of Persia. But that's not the end of the story! During Esther's time as queen, the king's chief advisor, Haman, plotted against the Jews to have them all killed. (He hated a man named Moredcai, Esther's uncle, who was a Jew, because he had refused to bow down to him.) Because Esther was queen, she was in a position to stop the plot Haman had concocted. Esther had to stick her neck out many times, and in the end, the Jews (who are a part of Jesus's lineage, as seen in the genealogies in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38) were saved from the genocide. (You can read the full story in the book of Esther, which is in the Old Testament of the Bible.) Throughout the book of Esther, there are three key lessons that stick out to me: Lesson 1: Trusting God Throughout the book of Esther, we see Esther repeatedly trusting God:
"Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” ~ Esther 4:13-14 ~ Lesson 2: Saying "Yes Lord" and CONTINUING to trust in Him Not only did Esther trust in God's providence in her life and say "Yes God, I will do this and continue to trust in you" once or twice, but throughout the whole book! In Esther 5-7, Esther continues to invite the king and Haman to banquets in order to expose Haman's plot, and she does! Afterward, Esther begs the king to stop the genocide of the Jews, and Xerxes does, causing a celebration among the Jews. Because Esther continued to say "Yes Lord" and trust in Him and His sovereign plan, the Jews were saved. "If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces. For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?” King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have impaled him on the pole he set up. Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.” ~ Esther 8:5-8 ~ Lesson 3: Praise God Through Everything Even though Esther and Mordecai went through a lot of uncertainty in the book of Esther, they still continued to not only trust in Him but also praise Him. We see Esther and Mordecai praise God along with the rest of the Jews for His provision through the Feast of Purim. (This is near the end of the book of Esther in Esther 9:20-32. During this feast, the Jews' "...sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor" (Esther 9:22). The main focus of the Jews' celebration was to remember the death God had saved them from, and the joy they felt from the release of condemnation. This kind of illustrates what the Christian feels when they are saved from sin and death through the death of Christ on the cross because of God's grace and mercy towards us! Like Esther, as Christians, we should praise God for His good will and providence, and the salvation He has given us through His Son, Jesus. "And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday..." ~ Esther 9:20-22 ~ Esther: A Woman of the Faith Esther's story- which is a true story- is absolutely incredible! Her trust in God throughout all the trials she went though is jaw-dropping, and we should want to copy that faith! One way to do that is take these lessons learned from Esther and apply it to our lives. We should pray, asking for more faith and trust in Christ, saying "Yes, Lord" to what He asks us to do when He asks, no matter how hard or terrifying it may be! (Side note: God is still with you through everything, no matter how hard or scary it is! See Joshua 1:9 and Isaiah 41:10.) When we pray and continue to trust in God and do His will in our lives, He uses those circumstances to sanctify His children and make us more Christlike in our lives and faith. "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him." ~ Psalm 28:7~ To learn/study more about the book of Esther, check out the book of Esther and Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth's study Esther: Trusting God's Plan! (Note: I nor A Message for Christian Girls recives profit from this recommendation.)
I'd love to here from you! What's your favorite lesson from the book of Esther? Tell me in the comments below! |
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