Christian Natural Health

Today's podcast comes from this blog post: Are Soil-Based Probiotics Better than Traditional Probiotics? Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Music by Ben Sound at www.bensound.com  Today's meditation comes from Matthew 26:17-30, Mark 14:22-26, Luke 22:14-23, and John 13:1-30 Introduction:  I found it rather difficult to synthesize the four versions of the Last Supper in the gospels, and particularly where Judas was, and where Satan was relative to Judas, at any given time. Matthew and Mark’s gospels kept the story simple and short, moving directly from Jesus’ mention that one of them would betray him into communion. There is no mention in those gospels that Judas left at all, or that Satan was present. They also both showed that Jesus started with the bread and then moved to the cup. There was no mention of anything Jesus told them afterwards, either; they just sang a hymn and then Jesus led his three closest disciples down to the Garden of Gethsemene. Judas clearly left at some point, because hours later he arrived in the Garden with soldiers; it just isn’t mentioned when.    Luke went into more detail. He wrote in Luke 22:3 that Satan entered into Judas when he approached the chief priests and made a deal to betray Jesus. There was no mention that Satan departed Judas and entered into him again later, but perhaps he did, since John later makes mention that Satan entered into Judas after Jesus passed him the bread at the table (John 13:27). Also in Luke’s version, the cup came first and then the bread (not that this really matters). Jesus didn’t mention His betrayer until after communion in Luke’s version, suggesting that Judas was there at the time. Perhaps he was, though Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:27 that whoever eats and drinks the Lord’s supper in an unworthy manner is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. I suppose this would not be any truer of anyone in history than of Judas that night.    John didn’t actually describe the Last Supper in terms of the bread and the cup at all, but he alone recorded that Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. John 13:2 says that the supper was ended, though apparently the Greek phrase could have also been translated “during supper”—so I interpreted this as meaning they had eaten the Passover lamb and herbs, but Jesus had not yet instituted communion. Jesus’ comment that His betrayer was the one to whom He gave the bread after He had dipped it (John 13:26) is consistent with similar phrasing in Matthew 26:23 and Mark 14:20, just before Jesus institutes communion, suggesting this comment came first. Since John explicitly mentioned that Judas left right afterwards, and he was more specific about Judas’ whereabouts than Luke, his was the interpretation I used in the retelling.    It also makes sense to me that Judas would not have been present for communion, for two reasons. First, Jesus hates hypocrisy (as evidenced by his many run-ins with the religious leaders), and he knew that Judas was not one of His, as He repeatedly said that night. If His betrayer were to take communion right before Him on the very night of His betrayal, it would have been the ultimate hypocrisy. Second, Jesus was always walking the fine line of trying to tell the disciples what was going to happen to Him in enigmas and riddles (Proverbs 1:6), but without spelling it all out until after He had already risen (Luke 24:13-49). There may have been many reasons for this, but one of them was surely that He didn’t want Satan to understand His plan, or else he would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). Jesus knew Satan was in the room as long as Judas was. I suspect this was another reason why He didn’t want to explain about the body and the blood until after Judas had gone.    Passover was instituted the night the Israelites left slavery. It was from then on both a ritual of remembrance, and also a prophetic act. The Egyptians painted the blood of their Passover lamb over their door posts, which protected those inside from the destroyer (Exodus 12:23). This was a perfect symbol of... Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

This week's podcast comes from this blog post: Are Nightshades Inflammatory?  Our sponsor: trylgc.com/cnh, and enter the coupon code CNH20 for 20% off your order. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Today's podcast is a retelling a meditation on Numbers 22-25:1-3, Numbers 31:16, 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 11, Revelation 2:14   Introduction   What an incredible illustration of the power of words! This Old Testament Seer, who was not even one of the Israelites, nevertheless was sought by princes and kings to bless and curse their enemies—and he was paid handsomely for it. Was there anything special about Balaam’s words versus anyone else’s? I don’t think so—stories of blessings and cursings abound in Genesis especially (consider the power of Isaac’s blessing stolen by Jacob to set off a twenty year feud). Names also seemed to hold the power of prophecy (consider the power of Abraham’s and Sarah’s new names to foretell their destinies, and of Jacob’s “heel grabber” later turned to “Israel”). Solomon later had much to say about the power of words to shape a life (Proverbs 12:14, 13:2, 13:3, 14:3, 18:7, 18:20-21, 21:23). I suspect what made Balaam different from others was his faith in the power of his words to come to pass, whereas others might waver if the effects were not immediate. As Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” It’s the 'believing before you see it' part that trips most people up. In this story, I imagined that Balaam didn’t struggle with this because he had a rare gift of seeing into the spiritual realm from time to time. If he could see the effects of his words before they were manifest into the physical, he’d certainly have had an easier time believing in their power.    This is also an interesting story because Balaam wasn’t an Israelite, nor was his heart pure—yet still, God spoke to him. He had no covenant to cling to, but he clearly understood covenant, and he knew how to manipulate it to his own ends. The story in Numbers doesn’t actually show Balaam explaining to Balak how to get the Israelites to curse themselves; it cuts straight from Balaam’s oracles of blessing over the Israelites in Numbers 22-24, to the Israelites’ harlotry with the Moabite women and worship of Baal in Numbers 25. But we know that this was Balaam’s doing from Numbers 31:16, Jude 11, and Revelation 2:14. 2 Peter 2:15 reveals that Balaam’s motivation for this was financial gain.    I used to think it was very strange that God gave Balaam permission to go with the Moabites and then sent an angel to kill him along the way because he went. That certainly seems contradictory. But God did tell Balaam no the first time, which should have settled the matter. (Maybe there’s a lesson here: if God says no the first time, probably don’t keep asking?) The fact that Balaam asked again perhaps indicated that he was likely to do it regardless of what God said. Perhaps it wasn’t God’s best for Balaam to go, but He allowed it as a concession, knowing there was a potential danger in this loose cannon with impure motives. God’s concession, though, was for Balaam to wait until the men came to call him again in the morning; if they did, then he could go with them. There’s no indication that he did wait—Balaam just rose, saddled his donkey, and went. The fact that Balaam did not exactly follow the Lord’s instructions was a harbinger of what was to come. Balaam’s words had great power, and while God could use him to bless the Israelites, He could not afford to let this man say or do anything God did not explicitly authorize—hence the avenging angel.     Once Balaam was sufficiently terrified into submission, God let him live and continue on his way. And indeed, he did bless Israel only... but he still wanted Balak’s money. So he found a loophole in God’s instructions, which he exploited to his own benefit.     Fortunately for us today, we are now no longer under the curse of the... Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

This week's podcast comes from this blog post, Fat Burner Shots. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Today's meditation comes from Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13. Introduction For the first thirty years of Jesus’ life, He did nothing that the gospel writers saw fit to record, save for the one episode where He remained behind in the temple at twelve years of age, listening at the teachers’ feet and astounding them with His wisdom (Luke 2:41-52). He otherwise appeared to be a normal young man, until He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and received power from on high. This marked the beginning of His ministry. He had the power to do miracles at this point, but He had never yet performed one. Strangely, the first thing the Holy Spirit did was lead Him into the wilderness, to be tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1). The Holy Spirit actually intended for the temptations to occur. Yet we know God never leads us into temptation (Matthew 6:13, James 1:13); Jesus was a special case, for this too. Why?  In my retelling, Jesus recited to Himself the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness, believing that His own time in the wilderness was a parallel of theirs. They left Egypt (the life they knew), just as He left His old life of obscurity behind. They had never before known power, and then suddenly they were delivered with great signs and wonders. Then the Lord drove them into the wilderness, where they confronted daily needs, and with them, temptations to doubt the Lord’s goodness and provision. The story in the Old Testament does not record that it was Satan stirring up the people against the Lord, but then, the Old Testament had (almost) no doctrine of Satan. Presumably he was there, though, and the Israelites gave right in, every time. In order for Jesus to be our perfect sacrifice and substitute, He needed to be tempted in all ways as we were, and yet remain without sin (Hebrews 4:15). So the first temptation, according to both versions of this story in Matthew and Luke, was turning stone into bread. This parallels the temptations of the Israelites in the wilderness: much of their grumblings against the Lord had to do with lack of food and water. Notice that Satan waited to offer this temptation to Jesus until he’d been fasting for forty days, and was literally beginning to starve. Bread was not a luxury, but a legitimate need at this point. Yet would He trust in the Father to provide, or take matters into His own hands? If He did the latter, it would demonstrate potentially two things: lack of trust in God’s provision, and also doubt in His own identity.  It’s interesting that Satan begins two of his temptations with “If You are the Son of God.” These would not have been temptations if Jesus had no inclination to doubt who He was. Yet after thirty years of doing nothing remarkable, how could He not? Giving in to this doubt would have been sin, though, as “whatever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23), and the root of all sin is unbelief (John 16:9).  The order of the second and third temptations varies in the two accounts in Matthew and Luke, though the content was the same. According to 1 John 2:16, there are only three areas in which Satan tempts us: the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The temptation to turn stone to bread was lust of the flesh: putting the needs of His body above following God. He responded to this temptation by comparing God’s Word to bread: no doubt this was exactly what the original manna in the wilderness was meant to represent.  Pride of life would have been showing off by jumping off the pinnacle of the Temple, just to prove to the Jews (and to Himself) that He had the power to call angels to His assistance. Satan even tried to twist scripture to convince Jesus to fall for this one, adding to and omitting portions of Psalm 91 to suit his purposes. Satan’s version of Psalm 91 made it sound as though God had promised carte blanche: complete protection under any and all circumstances. But Jesus understood that His power was not to be spent upon His own lusts... Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

San Diego-based Joy Stephenson-Laws is a wellness warrior!  She is the founder of LA-based Proactive Health Labs (pH Labs), a national nonprofit health information company that provides education and tools needed to achieve optimal health. She is also author of Minerals – The Forgotten Nutrient: Your Secret Weapon for Getting and Staying Healthy, and founding and managing partner of Stephenson, Acquisto & Colman (SAC), the health care industry’s premier litigation law firm established in 1989. pH Labs’ includes a diverse team of health care professionals who are experts in making complex health and health-related topics easy-to-understand and easy to apply to your daily lives.  To learn more about Joy, see her website: pHlabs.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Krzysztof Czeczot is a Polish actor, director, and producer. Krzysztof has produced over 400 hours of dramatized audiobooks, among others: Game of Thrones, The Godfather and Blade Runner.  He is a winner of The Best European Audio Play and the founder and director of the Audio Bible Super Production, a one of a kind ecumenical project. It’s the world's largest 3D radio drama with Hollywood A-list artists, including some of the most famous names in business, has its own dedicated music and background sounds recorded in the Holy Land, and will be available on a modern mobile app. To top it all off, anyone has a chance to participate and share their voice. Apart from professional actors, they invite people from different walks of life to take part in the production.  For more about the Audio Bible Super Production, visit audiobiblesuperproduction.com Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Jane Wenning is a certified Medical Technologist with a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science.  She is an Athletic Trainer, and Health Mentor who has been helping women improve their mental and physical health for over 20 years.  During high school and college, she was overweight, struggled with eating disorders, had low self-esteem and brain fog.  Obtaining a degree in Clinical Laboratory Science and working with athletes, Jane merged these two worlds together to create a structured wellness plan focused on four pillars – Recovery, Emotional Energy, Nutrition, and Movement.   Outside of her degree she has spent hundreds of hours learning about nutrition, longevity, brain health, sleep, interval training, fasting, epigenetics and estrogenics.   With daily reading of the bible she finds confirmation in God’s word that He wants us to live abundant, healthy lives.  Jane now equips women (and some men) with the tools to transform into healthier and stronger versions of themselves to live life with vitality.   Jane's Contact Info: Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/jane.wenning.165 LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/jane-wenning-4-pillarshealth Website:  https://www.4-pillarshealth.com Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Today's podcast is a meditation on and retelling of John 2:1-11. This retelling comes from Messiah: Biblical Retellings. The second book in this series is Daughters of Zion: Biblical Retellings.  Introduction     Why was this Jesus’ first public miracle?     It’s clear he didn’t actually intend it to be. He tried to tell Mary no, and that his time had not yet come, but Mary insisted. Presumably these were close friends of hers, and she was embarrassed for the host that they had run out of wine. She also knew Jesus could help, which is remarkable in itself. Up until this point, Jesus had been baptized by John in power, but he had not yet done any miracles. Mary surely knew that he could do miracles as the Messiah, but it’s remarkable that she had the faith that he would, even after he told her no and he never had before. It was her faith that made this one happen: she actually ignored his ‘no’ and told the servants to go ahead and do whatever Jesus said to do. What must they have thought, when they knew they’d filled up the vessels with just water, and then brought them to the master of ceremonies to taste? Were they snickering amongst themselves? Were they wondering what they would say as explanation?     After Jesus was baptized by John and anointed with the Holy Spirit, he had the powerto do miracles. Satan tempted him in the wilderness to do miraculous signs to prove who he was to himself, since he had never yet performed any miracles. Satan wanted Jesus to doubt his identity. So when Jesus was beginning to literally starve after 40 days with no food, and Satan tempted him to turn a stone into bread, a necessity for himself—and he resisted. Yet now, when Mary wants him to turn water into wine—a luxury for others, he does it. Not only does he do it, he makes up to 180 gallons of it! It takes 5 normal sized bottles of wine to make a gallon, so this is 900 bottles of apparently exquisite wine. No matter how big this wedding, that’s way more than they could ever drink, even with a marriage celebration that went on for days. He continues this theme of abundance throughout his ministry: in the feeding of both the 5000 and the 4000, there was far more left over than he started with. When Jesus told Peter and his partners to cast their nets on the other sides of the boat, there were so many fish that the boats began to sink. He is a God of more than enough.     Moses’ first miracle under the Covenant of Law was to turn a rod into a serpent (a symbol of sin). Jesus’ first miracle as the bringer of the New Covenant of Grace is to produce an excess of wine (a symbol of joy) for a celebration. This reminds me of the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut 16:9-15): in both cases, the people are to take a portion of what he has blessed them with and enjoy it themselves—all God asks is that they invite Him to the party. He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).   Fictionalized Retelling: from Mary's POV   Deborah had been one of my dearest friends since the earliest days of my marriage to Joseph. She and her husband Zev had thought they were barren for many years, before the birth of their daughter Yasmin. Later they had two boys too, but Yasmin was the princess of the family. I watched her grow up with my own children, and loved her like one of my own. When Joseph passed away, her family and ours grew even closer. Zev cared for me like I was one of his own sisters, though my sons were old enough to take care of me then.     Alas for Yasmin, though, her parents were too poor for much of a dowry, and she was never a beauty. When she reached eighteen with no marriage prospects, Deborah privately cried with me that perhaps Yasmin would never marry. What would she do in her old age, once her parents were not around to provide for her anymore?     “Her brothers will no doubt provide for her,” I soothed my friend, though inwardly my heart broke for Yasmin, too. Yasmin did not let on, but I knew how it must... Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.