Cancer is Down and Obesity is Up

Cancer is down, reports Mike Stobbe (“US Cancer Death Rate Hits Milestone: 25 Years Of Decline,” Wilmington News Journal, 9 January, 2019.)

We find deliverance from many-a  malady by self-denial only to find that wesimply shift our appetites, unwilling to truly deny ourselves and reallylive.  But what, truly, is it to“really live”? 

Well, as expected of any informed Christian, I would offerthe Gospel, the Scriptures, the Truth.

God’s people and the world are in need of a“fixin'”.  And they area-missin’ something. 

“Bad company corrupts,” as an old saying,including the same in the Scriptures, goes. And the company of God’s people and its attendant blessings to mind andemotions are indeed salubrious. 

Yeah, if you have absented yourself from the company of His people, particularly the close company of His people, you need to get it right.  Get into the mix with a “small group,” a home group of Christians – primarily from your local sit-in-the-pew-looking-at-the-back-of-another’s-head church.  Get together with such and exhort, rebuke, encourage, and pray for each other.

Personal discipleship – people to people – is accomplished in a smaller setting, often in homes where real life takes place with confessions and assurances of the love and forgiveness which comes from God and life and strength and purpose is developed and strengthen in each one.

That is where obesity in body and in self esteem is trimmed.  Our value and our greatness are determined not by our self-image or popularity with others but by the standard of God’s Law as it is lived out in our lives.  Our beauty or our ugliness (in appearance and in spirit) is shaped by His Word lived out in the company of His people.   He cleans us up – inside and out. 

Strap on your armor and your athletic garb and readyyourself for training, competition, and war.  We are getting in shape –  bodyand, especially, soul.