Flexing your muscles

Remember last week’s message? If not, here’s a quick recap on how to boost your spiritual metabolism:

1. Start your day by seeking the Holy Spirit. Start yours off by presenting it and all your plans to God before you do anything else. It’s the spiritual food for your soul.

2. Don’t starve yourself. You need to feed your body with spiritual food to keep you going during the day, e.g. Read a few verses in the morning and continue to meditate on them throughout the day.

3. Do more resistance training. Train yourself to resist negative thoughts.

4. Increase aerobic activity. Be alert to people, places and situations that will tempt you to sin, and if you find yourself in a tempting situation, run, run, run, so as to avoid sin and maintain a clean conscience.

5. Take supplements. Make sure you attend the Wednesday meetings, not just Sundays alone. It’s the extra boost you need to keep you going.

6. Build more muscle. Faith is this muscle, therefore the more you use it, the stronger you will become, burning away every doubt lurking in your mind.

7. Avoid burnout. Do not rush into doing everything at once; otherwise, you will lose interest quickly. It’s not a quick fix to look good for others, it’s not a 1, 6 or 12-month plan. It is for the rest of your life.

At the end, I asked this question: “What has this got to do with your love life?” Well, the spiritual metabolism refers to your faith. It is faith that is needed to receive God’s blessings for your love life. If you are constantly put down because your love life is “dead”, it will not change for the better, unless you use your spiritual muscle – your faith.

Let’s look at two examples in Hebrews:

“By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.” (Hebrews 11: 11)

“By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.” (Hebrews 11: 24, 25)

Sarah through her own faith believed that she could give birth at 90, therefore received strength to conceive, carry and give birth to Isaac.

She believed God would come through for her in the end. It was Sarah’s faith that enabled her 90-year-old body to endure the back pain, irritability, mood swings, vomiting and all the other symptoms experienced in pregnancy.

How many women past forty years of age write themselves off as being “useless” or “past the age?”

Likewise, Moses chose to be a slave amongst his own people rather than live a lavish lifestyle, denying himself of the temporary sinful pleasures that would be offered to him on a plate by Pharaoh. He knew these pleasures were short-lived, believing that he would receive greater eternal blessings.

Moses’ faith enabled him to endure the headache of dealing with up to 3 million potential problems, sleep in a tent in the hot desert, living like a gypsy; moving from place to place, seeing his own people die in the desert, due to their stubbornness.

They both endured mockings, self-doubt, various trials and persecutions. They, and others like them, used FAITH. How much have you endured because of your faith?

Do you complain at every little problem, thought or unanswered prayer?

Stop whining at where your love life is taking you. Instead, start flexing and using your muscles (your faith) to drive your love life in the direction where you want it to go.

And this is only the beginning. You have to continue until you give birth to your blessing.

If you have not done any of the seven things above in this past week (at the very least), then your faith has been empty, dead and useless.

“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26)

Pastor ­Michael­ Boodram
Email ­me: ­love@uckg.org
www.partners4life.tv
michaelboodram.blogspot.com

7 Ways to Boost your Spiritual Metabolism



Everyone wants to lose, or at least maintain their weight at some point in their lives. However the key to achieving your goal involves something called 'Metabolism'.

Think of it as an engine that that has not been started for some time. It may take time to start up, but once it has warmed up, it will go where you want it to.

When overweight, our body does not feel like exercising. But once you push yourself you start losing fat and gaining more muscle, and that's when your metabolism starts working. The more muscle you gain, the higher your metabolic rate, therefore the more calories you will burn. And the good thing is that it doesn't only work when you are in the gym but even while sleeping your metabolism is working for you burning off those calories.

Our faith is like our body's metabolism. If it is not started then you will never reach where you want to go. But once you start putting your faith to good use, you've started something in you that God was waiting for, in order to answers your prayers.

It's the kick-start that is needed in order for God to work with those who want their faith to achieve big results in their lives - to lose the excess weight that most of the time puts you down, makes you sluggish and that brings doubts that you will not overcome difficult circumstances in life.

Get it going and it's all that God needs to jbe with you, even answering your prayers while you sleep.

Below are the '7 Ways to Boost your Spiritual Metabolism'.

1.    Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Before your bacon, eggs, toast and tea, start your day by seeking the Holy Spirit. Present your day and all your plans to God before you do anything else. It's the spiritual food for your soul.

2.    Don't starve yourself. You need to feed your body with spiritual food to keep you going during the day, e.g. Read a few verses in the morning and continue to meditate on them throughout the day.

3.    Do more resistance training. Whenever a negative thought pops into your mind, reject it immediately, rather than allowing it to take up residence in your subconscious, only to resurface later on. Train yourself to resist negative thoughts.

4.    Increase aerobic activity. Be alert to people, places and situations that will tempt you to sin and if you find yourself in a tempting situation - run, run, run. This will also keep your mind and heart clean and healthy by avoiding sin and maintaining a clean conscience.

5.    Take added supplements. Make sure you attend the Wednesday meetings, not just Sundays alone. It's the extra boost you need to keep you going, especially during those more hectic weeks.

6.    Build more muscle. The more muscle you have, the more unwanted calories you will burn. Faith is this muscle, therefore the more you use it, the stronger you will become, burning away every doubt lurking in your mind.

7.    Avoid burnout. Do not rush into doing everything at once, otherwise you will lose interest quickly. The key is to not lose focus in what you are setting out to achieve. It's not a quick-fix to look good for others, it's not a 1, 6 or 12 month plan. It is for the rest of your life. If you get it right early-on, the sooner you will enjoy the benefits of your spiritual investment.

Spiritual Health Warning:  If you have a bad reaction to change or you have an allergy to other forms of medication (using faith) or, if during treatment you experience bad side effects e.g. Doubts, thoughts of giving up, etc. then seek immediate advice from your Pastor.

Find out what this has to do with your love life next week.



The Missing link

 

There are many reasons why people in the church may not receive God's promises in their love life. I would like to focus on the one that quite a few people in the church are guilty of, and that is...

...Well, before I mention it, let me tell you what people who commit this mistake normally do or say.

"I have prayed for years and I am still single." "I think it's God's will for me to be single.
" I have done everything, so if God doesn't answer me soon, then I will no longer attend church."
"God will bless me in His time."

They say to themselves I will attend Love Therapy, but when things get too tough for them, they stop.

Sometimes, a person (an ex-partner or someone out of the blue) will, all of a sudden, take an interest in the person and say that they want to go out with them.

Is this wrong? Well, you will know it's wrong because along with those sweet words and gestures comes a bag of secrets that are yet to be uncovered. As the person becomes besotted with this quick interest in them, they forget about finding out about the other things they should and need to know about this person. Because they ignore this, they get to a point where their heart rules over their head and it becomes harder to convince them that this person is not the right one. By this time, they have decided this person is the right one for them and may have already slept with one another or even moved in together and the list goes on. Sooner or later they will realise for themselves that the person was never the right one. However, by then the damage has already been done and now they feel hurt, betrayed and even guilty before God.

So, what's their mistake?

They did not complete or commit to the Chain of Prayer. It's in a Chain of Prayer that you will learn all the trimmings, not just receive the main dish, i.e. You will learn to value yourself, be humble, patient, forgive, your role in marriage, etc. and not just about finding a husband or wife.

The first day myself and Chris arrived in the church, we were advised to start a Chain of Prayer. We did not see the result  of our attendance in the first 7 weeks, though we saw changes and learnt a lot. However, we kept it up. For us it was 3 days a week, in the beginning. Eventually, we received the answers to our persistence and determination. We did many Chains of Prayer for our love life and never looked at it as "if we don't get an answer in 7 weeks, then we are out of here." On the contrary, we cherished it; valued it, learnt from it and stuck to it.

Can YOU say the same thing? It's the foundation of the UCKG... And it works!

When someone does not complete and persist in the Chains of Prayers until they get what they want, they are showing a number of things about themselves:-

1.    They are expecting God to bless them without any effort on their part, as if He is a magician.

2.    They are not determined to see it through to the end, to the point of testifying to the church the amazing things God has done through their persistence. As soon as any obstacle or distraction comes, the Chain will take a 'back seat'.

3.    "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much." Luke 16:10.

I am aware there will be things that will come up from time to time. However, if you notice that something ALWAYS comes that causes you to break your Chain of Prayer, it means you are on the right track and your answer will eventually come - if you are willing to fight for it.