 It's good to see you all. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Lana for those who don't know me. Today we're going to talk about something very practical but it's as spiritual as it gets our bodies because God created our bodies. We have a special healing service this morning with communion but I am sure that you can agree with me that health is better than healing because for us to be healthy means we don't have sickness and we're going to focus this morning on I'm going to focus my speech on on health and then we're still going to pray for healing today amen and so few four basic factors about our bodies and I'm going to tell you why God thinks that our bodies are so important. First of all is God created our bodies. Do you agree with me? Are you? Are you? Yeah. Now Jesus paid with his precious blood and he died on a cross to save our souls and our bodies. The Holy Spirit he lives in our bodies. He chose to live inside of us and at the end of the day God will resurrect our mortal bodies after we die and that's all scriptural. Now what we do with our bodies will affect everything else that we do. It's gonna our physical health will affect our mental emotional financial relational and everything else that we do in our lives and so let us go to the scripture that actual Daniel 1 12 to 15. We're gonna actually base the whole series that Pasir Vat will be preaching on this scripture and it's about Daniel and this is what he says. He thought he presents his diet plan to the king of Nebuchadnezzar. He captured the Jerusalem and he asked his officials to find him a couple of a few Hebrew boys that are very smart and from royal families and this is what Daniel is telling to that guy. Please test us for 10 days on a diet of vegetables and water. Daniel said at the end of the 10 days see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating from the king's food. Then make your decision in light of what you see. The attendant agreed to Daniel's suggestion and tested them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating from the food assigned by the king. Many of us we know the story of Daniel and how he was brilliant, brilliant guy and he ended up serving at the king's court and this is the proof how diet shapes our destinies. It shapes where we're gonna end up amen. And let me tell you that Eve's diet brought calamity to the whole world. It had to do with what she was not supposed to eat. Now Esa was robbed of his blessing because he gave away what he was supposed to eat and now we know that Jesus was also tempted in a wilderness with food but he did not blow that test. Amen? He did not eat what he was not supposed to and I want to present four practical goals that we would like to keep this year and I'm gonna encourage every single person. It's so simple and I know we've heard it so many times but please don't check out. Write it down if you need to. Four simple goals. Number one is drinking water. We all know that most of our body is made out of water and we know that water is so important for the body and this is the benefit. Here are benefits of drinking water. It reverses fatigue, improves mood, treats headaches and migraines, helps in digestion and constipation. Weight loss, flushes out toxins, regulates body temperature, promotes healthy skin and I'm gonna stop for a second ladies. If you're buying expensive, expensive creams and I know one lady told me that recently but you are not drinking water. It's useless because your skin needs water before it needs an expensive cream and then it prevents joint pains and arthritis and increases your metabolism. This is what water does to your body. Goal number two, healthy eating. We know that the Bible says that gluttony is sin. Over-eating is sin actually and we see the examples that Eve, Issa, Israel, Sodom and Gomorrah they pretty much ate themselves out of the blessing and Jesus was tempted with food as I already said and here are some of the most unhealthy foods. It's high sugary foods like cereals, high sugary cereals and then coffee or other sugary drinks, canned soups, margarine, sodas, processed lunch meats, frozen french fries and let me tell you one story. I have a friend and she's here. She allowed me to share this story but I'm not gonna mention her name. She lost 50 pounds in one year. One time she looked at herself and she's like oh my god what happened to me? She gained a lot of weight and she was not happy with that and she decided to do something but she didn't go all crazy like cold turkey on everything. She just made small steps and she saw a progress and she lost 50 pounds a year and this is what she did. Very simple. She started to watch what she ate, less sugar stuff, less processed foods and she started to commit about 10 minutes a day of walking and biking okay and that's all she did and her body responded right away with that consistency throughout the year and 50 pounds was gone. I was like wow I can't believe that. It's so easy. Come on let us put our hands together for that girl. I'm so proud of her. Goal number three, active living and here's the secret. Many of us were so afraid and me including I am so afraid because I hate running. I, most of the exercises I just can't stand there okay and I discovered the secret is that you have to find something that you love and do it. Don't do what you don't like unless like you really want to be fit. We're talking about health right now. We're not talking about being a bodybuilder okay and so find something that you love to do. It could be swimming. It could be exercising. It could be running, hiking, biking. It could be walking anything. For example, I love to roll a roller blade and every single summer when it's warm almost every single day I go roller blade and I enjoy that and I see how I feel after that. My mind feels sharper. I feel really good. I have energy and it just finding something that you like to do and this here are some benefits of exercising. Exercising number one gives energy and let me tell you something. We cannot do anything with our bodies if we don't have energy okay. We cannot take care of our family like Pastor Vlad mentioned. We cannot properly work, function, think anything and when you give energy you actually receive energy back. It's not when you're just like doing nothing on a couch or sitting. No it's when you give energy you receive energy back and this is important. Now it boosts our brain power, melts away stress, controls weight, fights off sicknesses, creates stronger heart, reduces aging, improves eyesight and that's only eight that I mentioned but I'm sure there's a lot more than that and now 10 minutes a day can make such a big difference in our lives and it's so simple. It's not complicated and we don't have to be afraid of that. Active living is very important. Number four restorative sleep. The best sleep for your body is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. This is where your body rejuvenates and restores itself the best and lack of sleep will bring 27% higher risk of obesity, 48% of health diseases, 5 times higher risk of diabetes, 20% of accidents are due to lack of sleep and of course stress. Stress is the biggest thing because if you're stressed out, if you don't have enough sleep and rest to your body, you're going to be stressed out and from stress comes sickness, any kind of sickness due to stress. Now, lasting change begins with committing our bodies to Christ and this is what the Bible says in Romans 12, 1 and 2. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because all of He has, because of all that He has done for you, let them be a living and a holy sacrifice, the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. And I believe that our bodies belong to God. He created them and we have to present our bodies as faithful stewards because He gave it to us and we have to take care of it. Our bodies are important as a living sacrifice to take care of our bodies this year. Amen. Are we going to start taking care of ourselves? Yep. You know, today, we actually, as a society, we make similar mistakes as Greek philosophers did thousands of years ago. For example, Plato, Socrates and another guy, I forgot his name. They believe in dualism, which included the idea that your mind is important, but your body is not. They devalue the body and some of them even believe that the body is evil. And we know that this is completely against what the Bible teaches us because we know that God created our bodies and anything that God creates has a purpose. And so, when we choose today a healthy living and taking care of our bodies, we actually are setting ourselves to fulfill the purpose that God has created us on this earth. Amen. Amen. And with this being said, I hope that you guys had a little bit of information and inspired and encouraged to take care of our bodies this year and do those small little steps to take care of ourselves. Amen. Thank you for watching this content. I hope this was a blessing to you. If you're like me and you like to click on things, click on this, subscribe to our channel, and the content will come to you every time we post it. And remember, the best is yet to come.