Worship: For Heaven’s Sake If God is for you, no one and nothing can be against you. It took forty years of failure in the wilderness for the children of Israel to finally believe God and His prophets. Only then could they be established. Only then could they prosper. (Read more below.)
Wellness: For Health’s Sake Pastor Flemons, a doctor of biblical wellness, discussed stress and the effects of the REFRESHING lifestyle on stress. (Read more below.)
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TOPICS THIS WEEK
Worship: February 5 – From Sinai to Kadesh; February 6 – The Twelve Spies; February 7 – The Rebellion of Korah; February 8 – In the Wilderness; February 9 – The Smitten Rock; February 10 – The Journey Around Edom; February 11 – The Conquest of Bashan [All topics per Patriarchs and Prophets by Ellen G. White, accessible at this link: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp.asp]
Wellness: February 5 – February 11 – Pathology of the Circulatory System; February 5 – Understanding Hypertension, Cardiac Output; February 6 – Understanding Hypertension, Vascular Resistance; February 7 – Atherosclerosis; February 8 – Heart Attacks; February 9 – Strokes; February 10 – Current Health News: Unnecessary Treatments; February 11 – Stress
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Words of Encouragement
Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and he shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Psalm 50:23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.
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For Heaven’s Sake…
“In the conquest of Gilead and Bashan there were many who recalled the events which nearly forty years before had, in Kadesh, doomed Israel to the long desert wandering. They saw that the report of the spies concerning the Promised Land was in many respects correct. The cities were walled and very great, and were inhabited by giants, in comparison with whom the Hebrews were mere pygmies. But they could now see that the fatal mistake of their fathers had been in distrusting the power of God. This alone had prevented them from at once entering the goodly land. PP 436.3
“When they were at the first preparing to enter Canaan, the undertaking was attended with far less difficulty than now. God had promised His people that if they would obey His voice He would go before them and fight for them; and He would also send hornets to drive out the inhabitants of the land. The fears of the nations had not been generally aroused, and little preparation had been made to oppose their progress. But when the Lord now bade Israel go forward, they must advance against alert and powerful foes, and must contend with large and well-trained armies that had been preparing to resist their approach. PP 436.4
“In their contest with Og and Sihon the people were brought to the same test beneath which their fathers had so signally failed. But the trial was now far more severe than when God had commanded Israel to go forward. The difficulties in their way had greatly increased since they refused to advance when bidden to do so in the name of the Lord. It is thus that God still tests His people. And if they fail to endure the trial, He brings them again to the same point, and the second time the trial will come closer, and be more severe than the preceding. This is continued until they bear the test, or, if they are still rebellious, God withdraws His light from them and leaves them in darkness. PP 437.1”
(This study is based on Deuteronomy 2 and 3:1-11 and chapter 39, “The Conquest of Bashan” in Patriarchs and Prophets (PP), by Ellen G. White, available at this link: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp.asp.)
For Health’s Sake…
“Stress has a great affect on the cardiovascular, or circulatory, system. Everyone knows that there is some kind of link between stress and high blood pressure,” says Pastor Flemons. It is a known fact that people have had strokes and heart attacks due to a moment of extreme stress.
However, if people were to rely on God, stress would vanish or at the very least be lowered significantly. Stress causes the blood vessels to constrict and fat to be produced and converted into usuable sugar for energy in a fight-or-flight situation. Trusting in God, however, opens the blood vessels and normalizes the heart rate.
Eating healthy can relieve stress. Eating the flesh of animals and refined foods is essentially eating cholesterol and causing stress on the circulatory system. Too much sugar raises the blood sugar too fast and causes the body to respond by taxing the adrenal glands. Blood pressure then necessarily rises.
Fresh air provides negative ions that fight toxins in the body, called free radicals, which do the initial damage to the walls of the arteries. It is the deprivation of oxygen to the heart and brain that causes damage when you have heart attacks and strokes.
Getting good rest eliminates or at least minimizes stress. When you are not well rested, you cannot function peacefully or calmly.
Exercise lowers stress levels. Period. Walking or running may be the only thing that is needed to lower stress.
Self-control in abstaining from all things harmful and doing in moderation those things that are good helps keep stress at bay. Most harmful things cause a chemical-induced stress. For instance, drinking caffeinated beverages, like sugar, induces the stress response of the body. It is the same with nicotine. Once the caffeine or nicotine has worn off, the body can become nervous and shaky. That shows stress.
H2O-water is the great detoxifier of the body. It hydrates the body. It adds oxygen to the cells. It thins the blood and eases the burden on the heart of pumping the blood through the body. The blood is already five times thicker than water. Without water the blood would be even thicker and the heart would have to pump harder to keep the blood flowing.
Spending time in the sun lowers stress in the body. Sunlight uses cholesterol to manufacture vitamin D in the skin. This causes the body to pull cholesterol from the veins to replace the cholesterol used to produce vitamin D and to maintain the level of cholesterol needed in the skin.
Never giving up produces a positive attitude and thereby relieves stress. Persistently focusing on right goals is akin to trusting and relying on God.
Giving to others brings a joy in doing something good and produces an attitude that relieves stress.
As you can see, unrelieved stress causes high blood pressure that can lead to major organ damage as well as to strokes and heart attacks. As you can see, the R-E-F-R-E-S-H-I-N-G way lifestyle is the great stress reliever.