New Milestone

Yesterday I felt like McDonald’s was getting an unhealthy grip on me. I decided to forgo my usual Saturday McMuffin breakfast. I felt led to do that. Today I got up, and THREE MORE POUNDS WERE GONE. I’m down over twenty.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I can’t believe it! Don’t even try to tell me this isn’t supernatural. For months, I’ve been losing weight because I’ve had the God-given willpower to eat like a normal person instead of a food addict. But yesterday, the fat just plain fell off, with no explanation. I’m within TEN POUNDS of my goal. If I can take another five pounds off after that, I’ll be almost as thin as I was when I boxed.

I don’t know why I talk in terms of goals. I’m not doing this in my own effort. I don’t know where it’s going to stop. But I have a weight I hope I reach.

Everyone thinks I’m a kook, so I’ll continue being honest and adding fuel to the fire. I think uncontrollable weight gain (the kind most fat people have) is imposed on us by demons. I strongly suspect that a typical fat person has more than one spirit working against him. And I think they depart in stages. The toughest, meanest one is the one that puts the first twenty pounds on you. That one is nearly impossible to get rid of. You can overcome the other ones in your own strength, but the primary one will stay and fight, and it will beat you over and over. When it beats you, the others come back, and they like to bring new friends. I seriously believe that. I think this is what Jesus referred to when he talked about a spirit returning to a clean house and bringing seven spirits worse than itself.

When you get what low-carbers call a “whoosh,” which means a sudden loss of several pounds, it probably means one of your enemies just gave up and left. This is warfare, and warfare works that way. When you lose, you give up positions one by one, until the enemy is in your country. Whatever has been oppressing me is losing, and I am taking ground in steps. Like the Hebrews under Joshua. First Jericho, then Ai, then the rest of Canaan.

I think these things get power over us because of the way we and our ancestors act. We say horrible things. We do horrible things. Demons get permission to afflict us, and God doesn’t listen when we ask for help, because we haven’t repented. Then we and our kids end up with persistent, seemingly hereditary problems like alcoholism, food addiction, divorce, failure in business, and violence.

If you decide a little bit of sin is okay, and you carve out a place for Internet porn, gluttony, drunkenness, greed, anger, workaholism, vanity, arrogance, self-righteousness, or some other failing, you leave the front door open, and you don’t know what will come in. You can’t say, “I’ll be 95% pure, because that’s pretty good.” That’s like trying to stay six weeks pregnant forever.

I have control over what I eat. I have sexual self-control. I have also been delivered from unjustified anger, although it keeps trying to get back in. My deliverance wasn’t just a fat thing. It’s not a mystery illness. I don’t have cancer. It hit several areas. Please don’t try to tell me I did it, or that I lost weight because fasting days dropped my average daily calorie intake. That wouldn’t explain sexual self-control. Those explanations are all filthy, stupid lies. I could not do all these things for myself. I don’t know how. I wasn’t particularly upset about being fat. I wasn’t lying on my face praying about it all day. God picked this time to deliver me, for reasons of his own. It came as a complete surprise.

And it’s going to spread to even more areas. Hopefully, it will spread to other people.

Every morning, I take communion, and I search myself for bad acts (sin) and bad attitudes (iniquity), and I confess it and repent and ask God to drive it out. I think this is the correct purpose of communion. It’s not really the blood of Jesus. It’s not really his flesh. There is no miracle change. Come on; flesh and blood do not taste like crackers and wine. Jesus was not a cracker. The miracle–which truly is miraculous, because the means is supernatural–is deliverance from problems you and your ancestors have imposed on you through rebellion and ignorance. This is why communion can bring physical healing. Illness is often the result of sin and iniquity. God does punish people physically. He did it in the Bible, and he does it now. Why would he change?

I am not stating all of this as fact, althought the parts supported by the Bible are definitely true. This is how I see things now. I am no authority, but my experiences bear out these observations. If it all rings true to you, take it up in prayer and see if you get what I’ve gotten.

This week someone tried to tell me these good things happened to me because I was special to God. I corrected that revolting lie in a hurry. It’s not because I’m special. It’s because he’s special. Anyone can have what I have.

Here’s what I think you have to do.

1. Accept salvation, properly, giving yourself completely to God.
2. Get baptized in water, to acknowledge your salvation before other people.
3. Get baptized with the Holy Spirit.
4. Pray every day with your mind.
5. Pray every day in tongues, as much as you can make yourself. The Bible says this builds you up, and I have found it to be true.
6. Take communion often, searching yourself for sin and iniquity, confessing and repenting on your own behalf and on behalf of your ancestors, and asking God for deliverance. Never stop. Never decide you can tolerate a chronic sin or a bad inclination.
7. Fast and pray often, and when you fast, make sure you spend a good deal of time praying for the things from which you need deliverance.
8. Give to ministries and the poor, and to help the Jews and Israel.
9. Try to be good.

If you can do all that (pretty easy), I think you’ll have such a powerful foundation, the rest will take care of itself. I know there is more to Christianity than this, but I found that doing these things got God working in my life, and that caused the other things to get done. I found myself reading the Bible, going to church, listening to good teaching, reading helpful books, and so on.

If you can’t do it all, do steps 1-5. If you blow a day, start again the next day. If steps 1-5 are too much to ask, you are beyond help, because you won’t help yourself.

Think of this as your fallback position. Your base camp. This is as far back as you will let the enemy push you; you will always do this much, even if you don’t do anything more. If you can hold this line, you will end up taking ground sooner or later. You will end up doing more and seeing blessings in your life. I really believe that.

Use a timer to make sure you spend enough time in private devotion. You can spend three minutes a day praying in the Spirit, surely. You can spend five minutes praying with your mind, and five reading the Bible. Start with what you can do, and later, you’ll have the character to do more. Start with a mustard seed and water it daily. It will get bigger. Don’t expect it to happen instantaneously, although sometimes you’ll get huge, instantaneous leaps in progress. Your direction is more important than your location. Never forget that. At one point in Columbus’s first trip to the New World, his ship was three feet from a dock in Spain. That’s the nature of a journey. It shouldn’t discourage you. And it shouldn’t bother you if you get pushed backwards once in a while. That happens to everyone.

Jesus told his disciples to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons. These were the right things to do two thousand years ago, and they’re the right things to do now. If believing him makes me a kook, so be it. I will be a thin and healthy kook, and lots of Christians who disagree with Jesus will be fat and miserable.