BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

It’s Good to Have a Fat Soul Remember how I mentioned that 3 John 2 says we prosper and increase in health “as our soul prospers”? That’s what God is talking about when He says, “Let your soul delight itself in fatness.” He’s saying, “Feed on My thoughts and My Word, until your soul is fat and prosperous. Then, you can really live!” It’s not necessarily good to have a fat body, but it’s great to have a fat soul. It’s wonderful when you’re so full of God’s Word that you’re continually seeing His promises come to pass in your life and being increasingly conformed to His image. “Wait a minute,” you might say, “I thought I was re-created in God’s image the instant I got born again.” You were, in your spirit. The moment you received Jesus as your Lord, the old sinner you used to be on the inside passed away and your inner man was made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17, 21). Your outer man, however, didn’t undergo the same instantaneous change. Even if you were physically healed or delivered from something when you were born again, for the most part, unlike your spirit which was totally made new, your soul and body remained the same. For them to change, you must be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2), and that’s a process. As you pursue that process, depending on how much you give yourself to God and His Word, over time you start looking on the outside like the born-again you on the inside. Your habits change. Your countenance brightens. Even elements of your personality change. My personality is different today than it was when I first got born again. I used to be timid. I so disliked public speaking that the first time the pastor of a church where Kenneth was preaching asked me to get up and greet the people, I flatly refused. After spending a few years in the Word, however, that shyness vanished. I started preaching, and the devil couldn’t shut me up. Really, the Word of God changed everything for Ken and me. Overall, we used to live at such a low level it was pitiful. We didn’t know what our future was or what job we should take. We lived in bondage to debt, and if sickness came, we didn’t know anything else to do but go to bed and be sick. But just as Jesus said, as we continued in His Word, the truth made us free. It showed us how to make sure our future is bright and how to make wise decisions in life. It brought us out of debt, prospered us and gave us the faith to not only receive healing when we got sick, but to live well. As a result, we’re not desperate people anymore! We have the joy of thinking God’s higher thoughts, walking in His higher ways and living in THE BLESSING. I’m not saying we never have any trouble. As long as we live in this world, trouble will come to all of us. But because Jesus has overcome the world, and we’re in Him, we can do what He says and triumph over trouble. We can come out of it whole, undamaged and intact because we’re living in THE BLESSING system. One of the books in the Bible that lays that system out very clearly is Proverbs. The word proverbs in Hebrew means “something to rule your life by.” It’s the same word used in Genesis 1:18 that says God set lights in the heaven “to rule over the day and over the night.” The more we honor God by ruling ourselves according to His principles, the more entrance He has into our lives and the more good He can do for us. So, if you’re eager to walk in His best, Proverbs is a good book to study. It doesn’t mince words. It says, “Do this…and you will be BLESSED. Do that…and you will be cursed.” I’ll confess, many years ago I used to be a little afraid when I read those things. It seemed to me that, in some areas, doing what God said might really cost me. When Ken and I saw in Proverbs 22:7, for example, that “the borrower is servant to the lender” and that we’re to “owe no man any thing, but to love” (Romans 13:8) it looked to me like we were doomed. We couldn’t see in the natural how we would get by without borrowing money. But somehow God gave us the gumption to obey Him anyway. We committed to living a debt-free lifestyle—and it turned out for our good. That’s always the way it is with God’s Word. You don’t ever have to be afraid of doing what He says. Everything He tells you to do springs out of His love for you and His desire to BLESS you. 28 : BVOV

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