The Weight of God’s Glory
This message was inspired by my Pastor. It was one of those messages that causes you to shake when you hear it because it confirmed what the Holy spirit has been sharing with me regarding ‘Weight Loss, God’s Way’.
As children of the most high God, we are all carriers of God’s glory. Through the power of Christ’s death, we have all received God’s glory that is alive and working within us each day to form and fashion us into Christ’s image.
God’s glory is manifested in our giftings, our dreams, our natural abilities and our talents. It is through our gifts that we serve our fellow brothers and sisters and it’s how the bright light of God’s glory shines in us for the world to see. When we’re operating and flowing in our giftings our light shines bright and we lead others to Christ.
For many women, their health and weight has become one of their biggest hinderances to reflecting God’s glory. To be carriers of God’s glory, we must choose to put our health in it’s rightful place. We must learn how to see our body’s as housing the living God himself so we can reflect his glory. If we don’t take control of our health, while we’re not even aware of the enemy’s subtle scheme, he will steal God’s glory right out from under us.
It’s the job of the enemy is to cause our lights to dim. His assignment is to steal the glory. He wants us to feel bound, helpless and hopeless. He wants us to dim our light so that we will not feel like worthy carriers of Gods glory. His devices are very subtle: dream-robbers (I talk about in my book and the 21-day challenge) such as procrastination, excuse-making, blaming, emotional eating, low-self esteem and poor self-control subtly creep in to our lives and take many of us out of the game to a point where we no longer feel worthy of carrying God’s glory.
As a result of these dream robbers, we end up wasting so much of your life fighting the wrong battle. We end up fighting with the scale instead of letting our light shine. We end up hiding out from the world in shame or living our lives based on the number on the scale.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” ~ John 10:10
Battling the scale ends up becoming merely a distraction that keeps us from fulfilling our divine assignment. It’s keeps us in bondage and feeling unworthy of carrying God’s glory.
So as women of divine glory how can we wage war against the enemy’s plot:
- Put your health and weight in its rightful place.
God has given us a gift of divine health. It looks different to everyone. To some, divine health looks like a 6”4 elite athlete with 6% body fat and to some it looks like a 5’2 portly home-maker with thick ankles and great hair. Though it might not seem fair (especially if you fall into the latter category) it makes no difference as long as you’re taking care of your body to the best of your ability— making time in your schedule for regular physical activity and feeding your body like it truly houses the the living God himself.
Like the story of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) , designed to teach us very valuable life lessons, managing our health well (and your relationships, and finances) will teach us a lot about actions and consequences, success, discipline, consistency, stewardship and trust in God. Your ability to manage it well allows God’s glory to shine bright in you. Manage it poorly and even though Christ’s light is still in you, you don’t feel energetic or even worthy enough to carry it.
- Stay put!
For many of us, the struggle with our weight was not our fault. Many women were abused verbally, physically, mentally or sexually and turned to food as their pacifier or many were never taught healthy habits as a child. But now as adults, it your responsibility to take back what is rightfully yours.
Now that we realize that our health is a hinderance and a blockage to God’s glory we must do the work necessary to restore the breech. There are no short cuts to reclaiming your health. We must stay the course regardless of how frustrating the journey might get. Regardless of the set-backs, the false starts and the never-ending plateaus, we must not quit.
Sometimes we will feel like quitting because it feels like its just too much work and it feels over-whelming but remember to stay the course. You are carrying the weight of God’s divine glory so at times it might seem over-whelming.
Ecc. 7:8 reminds us, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning” but notice it does not give us insights into the bumps and bruises that we will experience in the middle of the journey but we can rest on God’s promise that the end will be worth it.
So don’t give up on your weight journey, don’t allow your impatience to take matters into your own hands, don’t change directions unless you’re sure it’s the holy spirit leading you and not your own ego, pride or fear and don’t lose hope.
Phil. 1:6 reminds us of the principle of steadfastness and commitment to the task: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.
- Focus on your gifts, skills and talents
What is your divine agenda? What is the vision that God has given you? Whatever God has called you to do, get busy doing that. When you’re driving in your lane and doing what God has put in your heart to do, you will feel so much better about yourself that I believe you will naturally start taking better care of yourself.
It’s time to relive some of the dreams and visions that God has given you. We’re you called you be a fashion designer? Mother? Preacher? Fitness instructor? Whatever God has put in your heart to do— do it! Our frustration often comes from knowing that we’re not where we’re supposed to it. Maybe that feeling of emptiness and angst ( that often drives us to eat emotionally) is the Holy spirt alerting you that your light is not burning as bright as it should.
We often waste so much time focusing on our weight that we miss out on a huge part of life. When you’re busy fulfilling God’s call in your life, you won’t have time to worry about the scale. Now the problem is that many of us were never taught how to eat properly so that will take some learning but if you do that and stay the course your weight will take care of itself.
When you’re operating in your gifting, you naturally want to set yourself up for success, and when you realize that healthy eating and being active contribute to that success, it simply becomes a matter of course.
- Understand the weight of glory
The enemy has us wasting much of our lives on a hamster wheel. If we’re not obsessed about our weight, then we’re obsessing about our family or our finances. These are all distractions to keep you from experiencing God’s divine glory. You thing this is about your weight? You might think that this is just about losing a few pounds— think again. Your health is one of the ways you manifest God’s glory. Attacking your health is one of the weapons that the enemy will use to stop your light from shining.
When you’re not in good health, you don’t feel worthy of carrying the glory. You don’t feel confident to carry out the specific gifts and talents that the Lord has called you to do. You may even stop pursing your gifts and get fixated on your weight or conversely ignore your health all together and let the devil convince you that it’s not important. Both extremes are lies from the pit of hell.
My sisters, put your health in it’s rightful place. Take the time to get back on track. Whether you’ve struggled with your weight for a few months or for all of your life, see it for what it is. You are on assignment from your loving, heavenly father. You task is to reflect his divine glory in your health, in your gifting and in all you do. Let it shine brightly in you for all the world to see. He has equipped and empowered you to carry the weight of his divine glory.