But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. - Matthew 16:23-25
Well the second weigh in has come and gone. The scales were pressured and the numbers were tallied. Some of the losers left excited and some left discouraged. I have to say, as an outsider, its been a pretty interesting week of watching 'the game'. I have had opportunity to hear what people say and how they were approaching the contest. To me, I found many to like mad scientist as they work hard to create a 'diet' plan or an approach to losing weight. Many remind me of the old Frankenstein movies where the crazy scientist runs around in the laboratory like a crazed mad man as he works to create his masterpiece. To hear the words of people as they craft a plan has been interesting, because most plans, though not all, seem to work specifically with this principle in mind..."What can I do to lose the most amount of weight with the least amount of effort!" Like mad scientists, they roam throughout the lab, looking for ways to procure their delusion of winning $500 by doing as little work as possible. In their crazed glassy eyed dash, the first big avoidance in the creation of their 'diet' plan is to avoid exercise at all costs! Exercise to most people these days is death knell of a happy life. To exercise would be tantamount to the torturing of a POW! The vision of not only making the time for exercise but putting one's body through such a rigorous course is too painful to even contemplate. It is far easier to take the path of least resistance to the platform of victory. I will spend a hundred dollars on the no workout magic pill diet plan before I spend one drop of sweat from my brow!
Yes, my friends, this is the cry I have witnessed with my own ears and have seen with my own eyes. As it is in the natural so it is with the spiritual! Most of the losers want to keep as much of their old lifestyle and believe they will lose the necessary weight to win the prize. Is this not the same game the serpent plays with people in church? We work hard at learning what is the minimal God wants us to offer and then, within this context, try to stay within the category of 'saved'. Like mad scientist we hear the expectation of the Word and then craftily begin to create our own spiritual diet to salvation. Its the same old story, rather than our lifestyle being adjusted to fit God's salvation plan, we work diligently to fit God's salvation plan to our lifestyle. Is this not the nature of the flesh? To find out what the minimum requirements are and then straddle that fence like a high wire dare devil! We do this naturally and we do this spiritually! Its the way and approach of the flesh. We work hard at putting our faith in man made idols and habits that have done us no good throughout the years. We just believe somewhere, someday down the road it will pay off. Like the cancer industry taunts us with the idea a cure is just around the corner and we continue to give more and more money to a lost cause, we wade out deeper and into the depths of despair truly believing our ship will come one day! Call it pride or stupidity or both, the serpent has us believing, in the end, our way will pay off!
Yesterday, there were some that received the immediate effects of serpent's laziness, because that's what it all really boils down to...just plain laziness. Some weighed in and had gained weight, which in the long run is good. Why? Well, there's no fooling them. The gig is up! Its very clear they must change or nothing good will happen. But for those who lost weight, doing as they have said, 'absolutely nothing', the deception can be devastating in the long run. The serpent has beguiled them into believing they can remained doing things the same way and still lose weight. Is this not the definition of insanity? Doing the same behavior over and over and expecting different results! In the long run...or should I say, at least over the next eighteen weeks...the truth about no behavior change will become more and more evident as the days pass by. If you truly want to 'win' the contest, it will come at a cost. There will be a cross carried and price will be paid!
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