Once again, Peter returns to one of the major themes of this brief letter, the idea that we will experience suffering because of our faith. This time, he identifies the root cause of it. See it for yourself in 1 Peter 5:8-9.

This is not the first time that Peter encourages self-control in this letter either. He has done so already in 1:13 and 4:7. But this time, he adds to it and tells his readers to stay alert as well. This is a common instruction through out the New Testament, but is the first time Peter has used it. His reason for including it is that the enemy, the devil, is looking for any opportunity to trip us up.

For the first time, Peter identifies this enemy. It is Satan, the devil, who is behind all the suffering and persecution that believers face. Peter describes him as a lion, a very powerful and menacing image to first century readers. The lion is a powerful predator, and is very intimidating, especially when faced in the wild. Peter uses this metaphor to describe the enemy, and his pursuit of Christians. He is looking for any and every opportunity to trap us, to tempt us, and to devour us.

In response to these attacks, Peter offers a simple, yet proven, strategy. Our job is to resist him. And just how are we to do that? By standing firm in our faith. Holding fast to our commitment to Christ is the only way we can win against such a powerful enemy. Note that Peter does not instruct us to fight back, to attack. Our only response is to resist, and that is by drawing closer to the only one who can protect us, the one who has already defeated this enemy.

As an additional encouragement, Peter reminds his first century readers that they were not alone. Their brothers in the faith, all over the world, were experience exactly the same kinds of things. Nothing has changed. Persecution still occurs. We still are being attacked by the enemy, and he is more deadly than ever. But we are not alone in this experience. The family of God all over the world is experiencing the same thing, many times in worse ways than we are. We can take heart and stand together.

This statement reminds of what Peter has already said, back in 4:12:

Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

Why can we take heart? Because, as Peter will state in the very next verse, we have someone who is in the process of protecting us, and who will restore us. Christ has already defeated the enemy. It is done. And while he still antagonizes the world with his hatred of God, Satan’s time is limited, and God will take steps to restore and strengthen his people.

In the meantime, stand firm, resist the enemy, and hold fast to your faith.

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Some Changes Are Coming You may know that I maintain several different sites and blogs, and have for some time. It has been sort of a hobby for me over the years, and an excellent outlet for my writing. And most of those other websites have sprung out of this one for the most part. However, I have been struggling with some things that God has been addressing in my life, and one of those areas has been the idea of rest, and what it means to abide in him. I have come to the conclusion that there are several areas of my life where I display the characteristics of a workaholic, and something has to give if I am to fully obey and follow God’s leading in my life. In light of this, I have decided to begin to shut down some of those other websites, and focus my attention more specifically here on JeffRandleman.com. I will be restructuring my writing habits, and redefining what I want to do here. In some ways, I will be adding back what I branched off to start a different website project, as is the case with my role as a father and husband. Deliberate Men (formerly Deliberate Dads) will be reincorporated as a topic that will be addressed here. In fact, many of the posts that have appeared on that blog will be transferred here in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for them. In other cases, I will simply shut down the blog and save those posts as drafts for some day in the future, which may or may not ever come. Who knows? That’s what will happen with the site I built to go along with my studies for a Master’s degree. That site never took off, and has never developed the readers like JeffRandleman.com has. That is partly due to the fact that I didn’t really publicize it, but also partly because I have placed the pursuit of a degree on hold as well for the immediate future. All in all, I hope to clarify my focus, reduce my busyness, and more closely follow God’s leading as he nudges me closer towards who and what he wants me to be. I hope you’ll stay with me through the process. Immediately, for the next couple of weeks, things will be pretty quiet around here, because before I make these changes permanent, I will be covering them in prayer for a few more days, just in order to be sure this is what I need to do. I’m pretty certain already, but I want to make sure I’m not simply pursuing busyness in just a different fashion. Your prayers would be appreciated during this time. For the next couple of weeks, I plan on posting just a bare bones schedule, consisting of Saturday’s quotes, Sunday’s memorization of 1 Peter, and Monday’s Coffee Break posts. Other topics, such as Bible study, book reviews, leadership, and spiritual growth will be on hold until mid-November. At that point, I’ll add in godly fatherhood and marriage, as seen at Deliberate Men, along with the possibility of one or two other occasional topics. Thanks for being with me on this wild ride. I’m excited about what God is doing in my life, and I can’t wait to share it with you in more detail!

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I have shared several times in the past about my health struggles, which have included sleep apnea and skin cancer, among others. The struggle to maintain my health, and to improve it, has been an intense one in my life for the past year. Almost one year ago, I overheard my wife tell a friend that she expected to be widow in the near future. My health was that bad. Something needed to change.

Recently, I shared a few posts about maintaining this temple we live in, our bodies, over at Deliberate Men. Since some of the changes I have made have been pretty significant, I feel it might be of some benefit to repeat this here.

I think one of the best things we can do as men, both for ourselves and for our families, is to stay healthy and care for the body that God has given us. I believe that when it is my time to go, God will take me, and there is little I can do to prevent that. But at the same time, until he chooses to do so, I have to be as effective as I can be here on earth. That means that I need to care for this body so that I can be as effective as possible. Being sickly or in poor shape or poor health won’t allow me to be or do all that he wants of me.

I have focused on two areas in my life to be a better man, when it comes to the physical side of my life. One is maintaining my fitness, exercising and keeping my body fit. The other area is what I put into my body, the stuff I eat. That’s my focus in this post.

I am not an expert in this area. All I know is what I have experienced, and since these actions have helped me, I wanted to share them. Maybe they will help you as well. I have made a few significant changes to my diet, and they have resulted in some incredible changes in my life and body.

Stop drinking soda

This is the first thing I did, and I did it several years ago. Soda is full of stuff that isn’t very good for you, and eliminating this from my life was a great first step on the road to better health. You can do the research about the effects of corn syrup and sugars in the body on your own, but it’s enough to state that when I stopped drinking sugary drinks, I lost several pounds almost immediately. I will occasionally drink a soda, maybe every few months, but I try to select those with cane sugar over fructose or corn syrup.

Stop eating wheat

This was the biggest change in my life, and the hardest as well. Wheat may not be all that healthy for us, and we ingest it with almost everything we eat. An extremely large percentage of the grocery store contains wheat in some form, and we take it in without even knowing it most of the time. Wheat has been genetically modified from its original state, and has become something that may not be as healthy as we think it is. Again, I won’t get into all the specifics of the science or medicine; you can dig through that if you want to. But I will show you in a moment what the benefit has been for my life. However, if you want a place to start, I highly recommend that you grab the book Wheat Belly and give it a read. It’s pretty technical in places, but stick with it and you will be amazed at what wheat can do to a person.

I made this change because most wheat products, or starches, convert to sugar in the body, and sugars have a large set of problems that come with them, including the possibility of feeding various cancers.

Stop eating dairy

This is the third change I made to my diet. The reason I made this change is because of all the additions, including steroids and hormones that dairy products contain. Along with this, dairy products were designed by God for calves, and not humans. There is a lot of debate along both sides of this topic, and I don’t know all of the details. What I do know is that cutting it out of my diet has made a significant difference in my health. And if I do inadvertently eat some cheese or something with milk in it, I can feel it almost immediately. I suspect that there was some level of lactose intolerance in my body that I was not aware of until I eliminated dairy products.

These are the changes I have made in my eating habits. Now let me share with you what the effects have been.

Weight loss

The first and most obvious change was the weight I began to shed. I knew I had a few pounds to lose, but when I made these changes, within the first few months, I dropped almost sixty pounds, and have hovered there ever since. Upon checking, I am now at my “ideal” weight according to all the charts in comparison to my height. But more importantly, I feel good about myself, and I feel good in general.

Energy levels

Before these changes, I felt like I needed a nap almost every day, and I slept a lot. But now, my energy levels are much higher than they have been in years, and that affects almost every area of my life.

Sleep apnea

My sleep apnea has disappeared. I sleep better at night, and don’t feel the need for naps all the time. And the sleep I get at night is much more sound. My wife tells me that I don’t toss and turn, and I’m not as restless as I used to be. I now sleep through the night instead of waking multiple times a night. The CPAP is gone for good!

Depression

It makes sense that what we put into our bodies has an effect on our minds. I have dealt with serious depression for a long time. Making these changes has improved my outlook on life, reduced that depression, and sparked my ability to have a greater joy in life.

Blood pressure

I have been on blood pressure medication since before I was 30. Recently, my doctor took me off of them permanently, because my blood pressure has dropped to levels that no longer require medication to sustain. And it has been rock solid ever since. That may excite me more than almost all the rest of these benefits.

Skin cancer

This is the big one. My dermatologist has been unable to find the spots he had been watching on my body, after discovering skin cancer a few years ago. Reducing foods that are either sugar themselves, or convert to sugar in the metabolism has been the likely cause of these cancer spots disappearing. Paired with the power of prayer, they are gone. That isn’t to say that they won’t return… they might. But for now, I can celebrate that they are gone.

I don’t know what may or may not work for you as you strive to be a healthy man. What I do know is that these changes have made a major impact in my own life, and I am thankful for that. Hopefully, they can help or encourage you as well.

The post How To Maintaining Your Health By Eating Better appeared first on JeffRandleman.com.

The Beginning Of A New Phase Things are going to be quiet around JeffRandleman.com for the remainder of the week, and I would appreciate your prayers during this time. We are facing a new challenge as a family, one that is not unexpected, but one could be more difficult then expected too. Our oldest daughter graduated from high school in May, and she is moving to college this weekend. It’s not a great distance away, only a couple of hours from our home, but for the first time, one of our kids will be living somewhere else. That’s a hard realization for me to accept. We have raised, and still are raising our kids the best we can, and I am confident that college will be an excellent new page in my daughter’s life. But that doesn’t make it any easier for my wife and I. We will be packing and loading the vehicles, and then moving her to Joplin, Missouri, where she will attend Ozark Christian College. Because of that, we will be pretty busy this week, spending as much time with her as we can fit in before heading out of town, and all my posts and articles will pause until after the weekend. Thanks for your understanding, and for your prayers!

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The first is found in this week’s passage, 1 Timothy 1:15-16:

Five times Paul uses this phrase, each time signifying that he is about to say something that is worth listening to. Here is the first example. The others are found in 1 Timothy 3:1, 1 Timothy 4:9, 2 Timothy 2:11, and Titus 3:8.

Each time Paul uses this, he then makes a statement that carries a lot of weight. It may be a phrase his readers would have been familiar with, maybe even part of a hymn or something frequently expounded upon in the sermons his readers have heard. Whatever the origin, the statement carries authority: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Paul uses this phrase to emphasize two of the foundational elements of our faith, Christ’s birth and his death on the cross. By including both the incarnation and our redemption, Paul establishes his point that Christ came, and that he came to save.

But then he makes it personal by adding the extension onto the end of the phrase that he is the worst of sinners. This should be the attitude of us all. Christ came to save us, even though we don’t deserve it. Christ came to rescue us, even though we are sinners of the worst kind. Christ came to redeem us, in spite of our sin and failures.

But why?

Paul goes on to say that Christ’s act of mercy was to display his patience in us, so that others could see it and believe.

If God can be patient with Paul, or with me, and still extend his grace to Paul, or to me, then he can do so to anyone who decides to accept that forgiveness and step into eternal life.

And if that isn’t a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

Have you ever thought about yourself being the chiefest of sinners? How does that make you feel? It brings a new appreciation of God’s grace, doesn’t it? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

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