Problem No 5: Overweight

If This is the first time you have come to the website, you will find it easier to understand if you read the introduction on the left first, and then the previous blogs before reading this one.

Symptoms and cause

Everyone knows what being overweight means – fat! In a human being it often means that the person finds it increasingly hard to move around.  When it gets to the obese stage, this can become life threatening, and bodily functions can be affected – coronary heart disease is probably the first problem we may think of, as a result of obesity the coronary arteries become blocked, and blood flow to the heart is reduced which will eventually lead to heart failure, because the heart just cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.    

Other ailments include diabetes, hypertension, pulmonary disease, reproductive disorders, osteoarthritis to name just a few.  So what is the cause of obesity?  This goes back, usually to the diet.  We can probably all think of foods, or what kind of diet causes obesity in human beings, how about the church?  Well, snack foods, junk foods, and addiction to desserts and a sweet tooth can result in spiritual obesity.   

What are spiritual snack foods, junk foods, fast foods and desserts spiritually? 

Desserts? – those are the sweet teachings of the bible – the promises that are for every Christian – God’s promises of his presence, his help and protection, his provision and deliverance, his revenge upon our enemies.  These sort of verses are sweet to the Christian and remind us of his greatness.

Snack foods and fast foods? – this is the quick thought for the day, the verses that get bounded around the internet and across mobile phones, facebook, line etc.  Snatching at spiritual mini bites for the busy Christian who has no time, or has made no time to sit and pray and meditate upon God’s word for more than a few minutes.

Junk food? – verses taken out of context, but sound really encouraging and convince us that we have:

·         Every right to be rich and prosperous. 

·         Every right to expect uninterrupted health and security.

·         Every right to be exempt from hardship or suffering.

Verses in this category are probably the main reasons why so many fall away from following the Lord, because they feel that God has let them down, forgotten them, or actually doesn’t exist at all.

These are the three main contenders that make for spiritually obese Christians.  Such Christians who have a diet of these things will find that they are building up in their spirits and in the end will result in them becoming inactive, unproductive and ineffective.

Besides existing on a spiritually poor diet, it is also noted that most, or many spiritually obese Christians also take no exercise or just minimal exercise so exacerbating the problem.