Unhealthy Spirit Man
Baby Girl,
Get your focus off your body or you will continue gaining weight. Your excess weight is simply a physical symptom of spiritual malnutrition. When you address the malnutrition, your weight will naturally correct itself.
Three people just came to mind who have been sharing their weight struggles with you and you got excited that I’m about to give you answers you can share with them. PAUSE.
Before I go on, let Me remind you that you are not to apply these principles to anyone but yourself. You still tend to tell others what I share with you and apply the truth universally before testing and proving it true in your own life. For this reason, you practice truth inconsistently and have only experienced temporary victories both in the flesh and spirit.
From this point forward, when something rings true in your spirit, pause and apply it to your own life long enough to find success in that area. Look back and remind Me what I said about giving people advice.
(From Letter - Healthy Weight) “You are NOT to advise ANYONE about weight loss, fitness, or to tell anyone specifically what, how, or how much you eat. If anyone asks what you’re doing or how you’re doing it your answer is simply “I’m learning to follow the leading of Holy Spirit in every area of my life.” How I will lead you into health is not necessarily how I will lead anyone else into health. Encourage them to talk to Me, to listen to Me, and to follow closely. As I am about to lead you into success, I will lead them into success.
Be clear about this: YOU will not lead anyone into success. You have proven that you alone are incapable of leading even yourself into success. DO NOT think yourself an expert.
YOU do not have anyone else’s answers. THEY have them. They have them in the same measure as you have your own: ALL. You have ALL the answers you’ll ever need - and so do they.”
When you get this right, people WILL ask. You will have the opportunity over and over to flaunt details of how you did it and you are NOT to do that. The specifics of how I will lead you into health will NOT be the specifics of what others need to do to achieve similar results.
Flaunt = to display something ostentatiously, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration or to show defiance
Ostentatiously = seeking to attract attention, admiration, or envy often gaudiness or obviousness
Gaudiness = cheap or tasteless showiness
You went to bed asking Me to give you a specific eating plan that will help you lose the extra 30 pounds you are carrying. I will not do that. You know more about nutrition and the body than the average person and that knowledge has been powerless to help you because food is not your problem. Food is the solution you’ve honed in on as the answer to your problem but, just like food alone is not your problem, food alone is not the answer.
Honed in on = moved toward or focus attention on
The problem is that you are feeding your flesh improperly when your soul attempts to feed your spirit.
What did I tell you about lights on your dashboard?
(From Letter - Radical Obedience) “You’re going to feel a lot of things. Pay attention like you would the lights on the dashboard in your car. Those lights are a sign that the powers of darkness are at work. Don’t let those lights cause fear, they are just a caution to keep you out of trouble. They are a reminder to pray.”
Difficult emotions signal spiritual needs. You are attempting to reset the signals by feeding your flesh. The other day when you started angry-cleaning, you were allowing the overwhelm you were feeling from over-scheduling your week to affect how you chose to handle food. You told your friend you compulsively ate about 1,500 calories of goldfish crackers and bread and butter in an hour. It was more than that and you didn’t stop until the swelling weight of all the flour in your stomach caused physical pain.
Your flesh, your outer man, is revealing the weakness of your inner man.
How do you strengthen your outer man? You exercise. You push yourself with cardio to strengthen the muscles of your heart. You lift heavy weights to put stress on and break down your other muscles so your body can repair and rebuild itself, becoming stronger.
What would it take to break down and rebuild the strength of your inner man?
Romans 8:5-8: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Enmity = the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something
To build the strength of your inner man, becoming healthy in both spirit and flesh, there are five principles to live by: plan your meals; don’t skip meals; move; rest; and hydrate.
1. Plan your meals. Don’t wait until you’re hungry to decide what you will eat. Think ahead.
Outer man – With food, if you’ve already decided what your body needs and created a plan to meet that need, you can respond to physical hunger by fueling your body. If you don’t have a plan then, when your body signals hunger, you will reflexively react to that hunger by consuming the most convenient calorie-dense foods available. These foods are generally almost completely void of nutrition. Without a plan, you are also more likely to mistake emotional triggers for physical hunger.
Inner man – With your spirit man, if you don’t plan what you will fill your mind with, you will mindlessly fill your soul with nutritionally-void entertainment. If you have not decided what you will not consume such as gossip, carnal news, ungodly music, and media then, when unscheduled downtime presents itself, you will go to the most convenient nutritionally-void content available.
Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.”
2. Don’t skip meals.
Outer man – When you wake up in the morning, eat a nutrient-dense meal first thing in your day. This will give your body the necessary energy to hit the day running. If you poorly choose (such as a donut) for breakfast, you will get a burst of energy followed by a crash leading to unhealthy cravings.
Inner man – Waking up to the things of the world rather than the Word of God and worship will spiritually do the same. What you consume when you wake up will set your mind’s metabolism first thing in the day. Are the thoughts you are feeding on leading to energy and emotional stamina - or are they energy-sucking worldly thinking?
3. Move.
Outer man – When you move your body first thing in the day, you set your body in energy-burning mode with your metabolism for the rest of the day. Exercise has been proven to boost metabolism and, when you start your day with it, you will be burning fuel more efficiently for the remainder of the day.
Inner man – Your spirit man works the same. When you don’t exercise your faith in action, your spirit man becomes weak, sluggish, and metabolizes the Word slowly, becoming fat. When you’re not exercising faith by LOVING and serving others in action, it’s like eating donuts and watching TV - your spirit man will become obese. The evidence of such behavior is self-centeredness, becoming judgmental of others, and pride.
4. Rest.
Outer man – Build downtime into your week. Rest and, in particular, sleep are every bit as important as what you eat and how you move your body. Throughout your day, you are doing things that will tear down muscle and you are exposed to germs that work hard to get you sick. An unrested body is ill-prepared to fight back. When you sleep, your body repairs torn muscles, restores fatigued joints, and fights infection. If you’re eating well and exercising regularly but don’t get enough rest, your body will still begin to malfunction.
Inner man – Spiritually, you can be eating all the right things and serving with your whole heart, but if you’re not taking time to rest in Me, meditate on My Word and faithfulness, and talk to Me, you will become burned out and become ineffective. Even I rested on the seventh day. Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Hydrate.
Outer man – You carry that water bottle with you everywhere yet the skin on your face is so dry it feels tight and the skin next to your fingernails is so dry and cracking that they feel tender on the keyboard. It’s not enough to keep water with you - you must drink it.
It feels counterproductive to drink all day when that leads to so many more trips to the bathroom but those trips are imperative to your health. Water is what flushes toxins out of every cell of your body. It’s not enough to consume liquid; consume water. Every other liquid you put in your body causes unnecessary stress on your liver cells affecting their ability to filter toxins out of your body. That sugar-free beverage you’re sipping on right now is slowly poisoning both your liver and your kidneys - learn to love water.
Inner man – Holy Spirit is like that water bottle. You always carry Him with you but, if you’re not flushing your spirit man out with the Water of the Word, toxic beliefs will cause disease in your soul. Your soul, like your liver and kidneys, is responsible for filtering out toxins and, the more toxins you introduce, the more stress you are putting on your soul.
In the same way you know that processed sugar is bad for your body, you are aware that worldly media (blatantly sinful content) is bad for your soul. Right now, you are drinking sugar-free flavored water thinking you’re doing your body a favor - you are not. You are simply harming yourself differently.
Let’s look at what that looks like spiritually. You know that there are TV shows, theater, music, and social media content that are blatantly sinful. If you shouldn’t be doing it, you shouldn’t be entertained by it. Your solution has been Christian content - LOTS and LOTS of Christian content!
You are FLOODING your soul with so much “healthier than the alternative” content that you are drowning My Spirit out with noise. Not all pastors on YouTube are speaking anointed words. Not all videos on YouTube are teaching the Word accurately. When you flood your soul with content, you tax your soul so much that it struggles to filter out the toxins.
Flooding your body with impure water, no matter how it is marketed, is harmful; the same is true in your spirit.
You’re so concerned about the number on that scale. You are as heavy as you’ve ever been outside of pregnancy. Your feet are swelling and tender from water retention due to poor food choices. You have bags under your eyes. Your pants are cutting into your waist. All of this is true but those are just carnal symptoms of spiritual malnutrition.
None of these symptoms will be reversed until you internalize these principles and live them out CONSISTENTLY, both in your outer man and your spirit man. One will not be healthy apart from the other.
Physical health without a healthy spirit man is not health. A healthy spirit man walks in healthy flesh. You are a spirit. When your spirit man is healthy, your soul and flesh will both reflect that.
Back to bed.
LOVE,
Daddy
Romans 8:6-9
