1. Realize your value.  Read Psalm 139:13-16 and truly discover in your heart how much God thinks about you, loves you, and cares for you.

2. Realize God’s sacrifice.  Read John 3:16 again.  And then read it again.  He did that for YOU.  He loves YOU!

3. Love yourself.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” originated from God, was repeated often by Jesus, and reinforced by Paul.

   Think about it:  it not only means that we are supposed to love others, but that we are supposed to ALREADY love ourselves!  GOD said so!

4. Forgive yourself:  others have messed up before you.  Moses murdered.  David committed adultery and sent a husband to his death.  Matthew was a thieving tax collector.  Paul persecuted and killed.  Thomas doubted.  Peter denied Jesus in His very presence.

   Last I checked, they all turned out ok.  You can, too, if you’ll just ask for God’s forgiveness and realize that He has forgotten about it, already.

5. Move on.  Eating yourself to death because of the past is not forgiveness (either of yourself or others), and it is a horrible, ungodly coping mechanism.

6. Forgive others.  Bitterness is stressful.  Chronic stress increases cortisol.  Cortisol leads specifically to increased abdominal fat and inflammation.  Abdominal fat and inflammation lead to heart attacks that kill prematurely.

7. Seek Him first.  Face it.  Life will be a struggle.  Stop seeking the world and seek Him, first.  “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.”

It is a lot easier, and it becomes automatic to take care of your body (the temple of the Holy Spirit!) when you realize that you are valuable, God loves you, you are forgiven, you can forgive others, you can forgive yourself, you can move on, and you can love yourself as God commanded!

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1. Fit For Jesus Metabolism Booster #3 for Christian Weight Loss

When I first thought about the concept of becoming Fit For Jesus, getting healthy and more fit originated out of love and gratitude for His great sacrificial gift.  After all, God sent His own Son to die and literally be the punishment for our sins, so that we would not spend eternity separated from Him.  Once we realize the awesomeness and depth of God’s love, it compels us to do SOMETHING in return, right?

So, originally, becoming fit for Jesus was an act of thankfulness.  In addition, once we have received salvation through Jesus Christ, His Holy Spirit resides in us, gently guiding us and teaching us, conforming us into His image.  The motive expanded from thankfulness to an act of honoring the Holy Spirit and taking care of His temple.  Either way, both of those motivators and reasons aren’t selfish and they give the glory and honor to God… but then a new motivation clicked inside my head as I listened to a sermon at church not too long ago.

I’ll need you to bear with me on this, while I explain the background.

In the sermon, one of the minor points was that there will be varying rewards in heaven.  Frankly, that means that Billy Graham is going to get a better mansion than me, as well as a host of other treasures, crowns, and rewards that I simply won’t get.  (For the record, that’s quite okay:  Billy Graham deserves them.  I’ll catch up the best I can, with God’s strength!)

Here is a nice visual representation of the concept (with absolutely no disrespect intended for the amazing Reverend Graham), and then I’ll explain what it means:

This is a graph of joy, of happiness, or spiritual reward.  As you can probably imagine, everything to the left of the black dashed line is life here on earth.  At point A, you are born.  There are a few ups and downs in life, as well as a few ups and downs in our spiritual rewards.  We get saved and receive God’s gift of salvation, we backslide a little as the devil attacks us and prevents us from reaching others, we reach out to Jesus, listen to the Holy Spirit, and we grow.

And then we die.  That’s Point B.

At Point C, we find ourselves in heaven.  We are all hanging around praising God in spectacular, unbelievable, reverent awe until Judgement (Point D), at which point our actions here on earth are weighed, measured, and burned up in the flames.  To paraphrase the Bible, we then receive our rewards based on the good stuff that is left, and then heaven just keeps getting better and better, forever and ever.  Here is the specific scripture:

Our actions with a value of wood, hay, and straw get burned up and lost.  If all of our actions are burned up, then we still stay in heaven, because our starting foundation is Jesus Christ, but we won’t have much extra reward.  If, however, our actions are made up of gold, silver, and costly stones, which survive the flames, then we are rewarded abundantly.

I left church that Sunday with ONE thought on my mind:  I want to do as many great and wonderful things as I can for Christ and in obedience to God, because I want a lot of reward in heaven.  And while at first I felt selfish thinking that way, I remembered that Jesus told us to store up treasures in heaven!

Naturally, my next thought was “Even though I want to be with Christ Jesus right NOW, the longer I am here, the more treasure I can store in heaven.”

Now, what does all of that have to do with getting healthy and fit for Jesus?  Well, I believe it has quite a lot, depending completely on two very important assumptions.

1)  We are going to assume that God doesn’t decide to take us early, and therefore die a natural death.

2)  We are going to assume that we seek Christ with our whole heart and obey His Word and do really, really good stuff that equals gold, silver, and costly stones.

So, finally, we are about to reach the whole point of this article.

Take 2 people.  They are born on the same day.  They accept Christ on the same day when they are 9 years old.  Day by day, they do the same good works, in the same order, reach the same number of people for Christ, tithe on everything, etc.  They are both wonderful examples of Christ and obey Him equally.

The difference is this:  one died early of a heart attack at the age of 42 because he wasn’t healthy and did not take care of his body.  The other lived to be over 80 because his health was important to him, and he continued to obey the Lord.

Literally, it becomes a simple math problem.  If the unhealthy guy got X amount of reward in heaven, then the healthy guy MUST have received more, because of the additional 40 years of building up treasures in heaven!  It’s not that the unhealthy guy was a bad person.  He was a great person who loved the Lord with His whole heart!  He will still be unbelievably happy in heaven.  He just didn’t live as long, and so He just doesn’t receive as much.  He wasn’t able to show God’s love to as many people or win as many souls for Christ, only because he wasn’t alive as long.

So… like I said, when I left church that Sunday, I initially felt selfish.  Then, I remembered Jesus told us to store our treasures in heaven.  Finally, I realized that I have an entirely new reason and motivation for being healthy.

How do YOU feel?  Think about it objectively, and let me know what you think.

Take care, and may the Lord bless you immeasurably,

Jeremy Nelms

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1. Motivation for Fat Loss

“Simple” is good, especially when the goal is to get closer to Christ and/or lose weight.

Way too many people try to make a relationship with Jesus Christ difficult and complicated.  Weight loss and fitness is no different, proven by diets that require an exact percentage of macronutrients at each meal or exercise programs that require complex programming, sequencing, timing, etc.

Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  In other words, “simple” is good, but you must, at the very least, have the mandatory ingredients for success.

As with most topics in life, the application of a few basic, simple principles or skills will bring about the vast majority of your results.  If I had to summarize what I feel are the top 7 action steps you and I can do to get closer to Christ right NOW, they would be:

1. Read God’s Word daily and actively obey.
2. Keep a prayer journal and use it daily.
3. Attend church weekly and actively learn.
4. Listen to Christian music throughout the day.
5. Find a Christian support group and friends that you interact with during the week.
6. Read from Christian authors and mentors who clearly follow Christ.
7. Remember that the Holy Spirit is WITH you while you are watching TV, surfing the internet, and talking with your friends.

Here are the top 7 action steps we can do to improve our health, lose weight and fat, and live longer, more productive lives.

1. For nutrition,

• Eat protein and fibrous vegetables at every single meal.
• Eat most of your healthy carbs within the meals before, during, and after your workout.
• Include healthy fats at all the other meals.

2. Drink a gallon of water each day and take a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement.
3. Perform intelligently designed functional, full-body resistance training 2-4 times per week, depending on your skill level.
4. Get 20-40 minutes of moderate to intense exercise on all the other days per week, depending on your goals.
5. Recover weekly by taking 1 day off per week, sleeping at least 7-8 hours each night, and having 1-2 cheat meals.
6. Have a workout partner, coach, mentor, and/or social support and accountability group.
7. Make the priority of your fitness efforts focused on the Holy Spirit and heavenly rewards, instead of worldly desires.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?  Yes, it takes planning.  Yes, it takes effort and action.

Ultimately, if you take an extremely brief amount of time to actually create a plan that incorporates each of the 7 action steps and ACT on them, you will become closer to Jesus.  You will get healthier and lose weight if you implement your plan.

But, we’re not finished, yet.  Remember what Einstein said?

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Look back over both lists.  Even our basic, fundamental summaries can be simplified!  In fact, what if we could summarize our overall list of 14 action steps into just 7?

1. Fill your mind with God’s word, His music, and Christ-led knowledge.
2. Fill your body with healthy protein, vegetables, and water, and properly time your healthy carbs and fats.
3. Move your body.  Intelligently.  Frequently.
4. Recover spiritually with prayer and physically with rest.
5. Enlist support.  Actively participate in a Christ-centered support group and health-minded social community.
6. Find experts and mentors.  Learn from them.
7. Focus on Jesus Christ with everything you do, including your fitness!

So there you have it:  7 Steps For Making Spirituality and Weight Loss Simple!

Leave us a comment below.  Share with us your plan for implementing these steps, as well as your thoughts about whether there are more ingredients to a successful relationship with Jesus Christ or successful weight loss.

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In the first Fit For Jesus blog post, I mentioned the following scripture:

This is only the beginning, but what a clear beginning it is!  Our body is the literal, physical temple of the Holy Spirit. By taking care of our bodies, we are taking care of our wonderful Holy Spirit’s temple.  Our body is a gift from the Lord, and we should all, in a simple act of thankfulness and love, take care of our body and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Are we required to? Technically, no. Salvation through Jesus Christ is a gift of God’s grace.  Our salvation does not depend on our actions, but don’t you want to give something back to our gracious Heavenly Father, who gave His Son for us?

(In the coming weeks, we will get into a lot of detail about how, while our actions here on earth have NOTHING to do with “deserving” salvation, our actions here on earth – including your levels of health and fitness – potentially have MUCH to do with our reward in heaven!)

Here is more scripture:

Jesus states that His body is a temple.  I know when I first came across this scripture, my gut response was, “Yeah, but that is Jesus.  I can’t compare myself to Him and call my body a temple!”

It almost seems uncomfortable to compare ourselves to Jesus, doesn’t it?  Yet, in the Bible, it clearly states that we are “made new in Christ”, and through the Holy Spirit “conformed to the likeness of His Son.”  Yes, we are conformed into the likeness of His character and His righteousness and holiness, but Jesus was also very human.

Jesus was exceptionally clear:  His human body was a temple!

This really seals the point, doesn’t it?  We are, both individually and collectively, becoming a “dwelling in which GOD lives by His Spirit!”.

I think we can all agree that the Bible is conclusive: our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  In the Old Testament, a tremendous amount of resources, including time, talent, attention, and money were devoted to the building of God’s temple.  The temple of the Holy Spirit – our body – should be no different!

Pray today for the Lord’s strength to help you build a temple worthy of the Holy Spirit.  Ask for strength to choose the right foods, the desire to plan your meals, the shift in priorities to create time to exercise.  Start with the clear scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you in more detail about His desire for you!

Take care, and God bless you richly,

Jeremy Nelms

P.S.  Stay tuned and watch out for a post later this week about the social networking side of Fit For Jesus!  I will need 10-20 testers, so be ready!

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1. Health, Fitness, and Reward in Heaven