“The bottom line is that you’re going to be what you believe”. Joel Osteen

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7

You are what you eat.

As I look at the above three statements , I see a pattern. The first statement involves our mind and our thinking while the 2nd statement involves our heart. The 3rd involves our mouth. I believe this reveals a key to living the abundant life. What we think and believe dictates the daily choices you and I will make, either good or bad. What I believe becomes my heart or my passion.  It is with our mouth that we speak and eat. This word “eat” is a reference to eating food but can also  imply “eating” or “mediating”  on something. You have heard the phrase “What is eating at you?”  What we think, believe and meditate on will direct our daily life.  As a Physician Assistant, I see people  every day who are literally  thinking and eating themselves sick – People who have broken hearts,  are stressed out, and fearful. People are thinking and eating themselves into diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and a host of other diseases. Why? I believe it’s because we have believed lies from the enemy whose sole purpose is the steal, kill, and destroy. Our choices in food are directly related to our thoughts or our mindset.  Stress and our poor diet increase inflammation in our bodies leading to a suppressed immune system and eventually disease. Did you know obesity is an inflammatory condition and more than 87% of our illnesses are stress related? Jesus came to give life. He said that He is “the bread of life” and that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Our part, we are told in scripture, is to “believe”. In the book of John,  we are told Jesus is the “Word made flesh”. Jesus said “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life”.  So in essence, the Lord is saying to “eat my Word” or mediate on my Word and believe that My blood is a perfect sacrifice for your sin. Believe you are forgiven and safe in Me.  Believe in My promise of the abundant life. In Joshua chapter 1, God tells Joshua to mediate on the book of the Law day and night and to do what it says . By doing so, he would prosper and be successful. Today as New Testament believers, we are not under the Law of Moses but under grace. Jesus gave us a new command:

John 13:34  A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Simply put ,we are to love God, love ourselves, and love others. We can’t truly love others until we love ourselves and we can’t love God until we understand His love for us. We are to mediate on His love for us and through His love for us love ourselves and others.

God gave us dominion over the earth. He said, “I set before you life and death, blessing and curses, now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, And Jacob” (Deuteronomy 30:19).  Unfortunately, so many of us are choosing death, not life. Many of the problems we face in this world are because many have chosen death over love, chosen to benefit ourselves instead of living our lives to benefit others. God created us to be world changers; to love others as He has loved us. He is awaiting for us to arise and take our place as sons and daughters of the Most High God. God created you and me for greatness not for our Glory but His. When you and I are blessed, it makes Him smile. He wants us tp prosper so we can be a blessing to others. Living the abundant life starts with what we believe, think, and speak.  What we believe is how we think and what we think comes out of our mouth and reveals our heart. We can learn a lot about a person’s heart by what comes out of their mouths. In Joel Osteen’s book Think Life Live Better, He said “Some people have thought themselves depressed. The good news is that just as you can think yourself depressed and fearful and negative you can think yourself happy. You can think yourself peaceful. You can think yourself into a better mood. ”  I will add that we can think and speak ourselves healthy.  The key to a successful, prosperous, healthy life starts with changing our mind sets or changing what we believe. In Genesis chapter 1, we are told that God created us in His image to rule over the earth. He told us to be fruitful, to increase in number, to fill the earth and subdue it. Let’s look at the word “subdue”.

Subdue-to overcome, quiete, or bring under control; to conquer and bring into subjection; to bring under control especially by an exertion of the will.

This is exactly what we must do to our thoughts. We must subdue them! We can choose our thoughts and by doing so change our lives. Joel Osteen (Think Life Live Better) compared the brain to a computer. If our computer has the wrong software it does not function properly. God has given us the right software. We have been programmed to live an abundant, victorious, faith-filled life. Joel states that we don’t experience this abundant life because we allow viruses to contaminate our software. Viruses or thoughts like “I’ll never be successful” or “I can never lose weight” infect our software and lead us to go around with low  self-esteem and negative thought. We must hit the delete button on negative and discouraging thought.

The truth is that thoughts lie and we do not have to believe everything that pops in our heads. Dr. Daniel Amen has has also discovered the power of right believing and developed what he calls ANT therapy.  ANTs is a pneumonic for Automatic Negative Thoughts. He compared our thoughts to ants that infect our brain. He states that we must recognize the ants and kill them. How do we recognize these ANTs or viruses? Negative or condemning thoughts don’t come from God. Romans chapter 8 says that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ”. God’s thoughts towards you are good. Dr. Amen states that we must recognize these ANTs and talk back to them much like Jesus did in the wilderness when the devil came to tempt Him. For instance,  your ANTs or virus may be “I am worthless”. Turn this statement around and say “I have been fearfully and wonderfully made” and “I have been created in the image of God”. You truly can choose your thoughts and the words we speak over ourselves. You can speak and think life or you can speak and think death. We must dig into the Word to understand who we are, who God is as Father, and who we are in Christ to recognize the scheme on the enemy. I will be posting a video soon to recap all we have learned and to teach you how to mediate or be “mindful” of the goodness of God in our everyday life. We will be discussing “Mindfulness” in more detail soon along with the importance of diet and exercise in our journey of a prosperous and healthy life.

Allison Rolston PA-C

Picture from Cornerstone Church 2012 sermon

http://www.cornerstonepeople.org/think/