I can do all this through him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13).
B efore you can make any healthy changes in your life, you must first believe those changes are possible.
Even more important, if you want God’s help, you must trust him to give you his power to change. Jesus said, “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29).
We call this the Faith Essential, and it is one of the key differences between The Daniel Plan and other approaches to better health. If you don’t trust God to help you get healthy, all you are left with is willpower — and you know from experience that willpower doesn’t usually last very long. You get tired of doing what’s right, and you give up.
The Bible says, “Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up” (Galatians 6:9 NLT). But where do you get the power to keep on going? You get it from God, by asking him to empower you and trusting in him moment by moment.
God can make changes in your life that you have never dared to even dream of. He specializes in miracle makeovers. “God can do anything, you know — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” (Ephesians 3:20 MSG). That is a power that you cannot find anywhere else.
Every year hundreds of self-help books are published. Many of them offer excellent advice, but most of them lack the most important ingredient: explaining where you get the power to change. They tell you what to do, but do not provide the power to do it. That can be frustrating.
For instance, have you ever tried to give up caffeine or sugar? You may succeed for a few days or a few weeks, but then stress hits, and you wind up needing a pick-me-up. Before you know it, you have been drinking two double lattes a day for a week straight. Or have you ever tried to forgive someone who has never admitted his wrong against you? You put your mind to it and feel at peace for a short time. Then something triggers your memory, the hurt and anger return, and you think, I will never be able to forgive that person. You’re right. You can’t do it without God’s help.
GOD’S POWER
PROVERBS 16:9 SAYS , “We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it” (MSG). The reason we eventually fail at all our good resolutions is because we don’t depend on God. How many times have you started off a new year with a new resolution or a new desire or a new diet, and only a few weeks later you’re right back in the same spot? You need willpower, but you also need more than that for a lifetime change. God says, “Don’t depend on your own power or strength, but on my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6 CEV).
Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
Think about this: What positive changes in your life could happen if you relied on God’s unlimited power instead of your limited willpower? The Faith Essential in The Daniel Plan means that you won’t be doing it on your own. God will help you as you rely on him and trust him to give you the ability and power to change what you want to change. I explain this in detail in The Purpose Driven Life :
Only the Holy Spirit has the power to make the changes God wants to make in our lives. . . . We allow Christ to live through us . . . through the choices we make. We choose to do the right thing in situations and then trust God’s Spirit to give us his power, love, faith, and wisdom to do it. Since God’s Spirit lives inside of us, these things are always available for the asking. 1
God understands you better than you understand yourself. God knows what makes you tick — he knows what energizes you, what fatigues you, what makes you sick, and what makes you operate at your best. Doesn’t it make sense to trust him to help you?
God has been there every moment of your life. He watched you being formed in your mother’s womb and watched you take your first breath. That means he cares about every detail, including your health. So why would you attempt to get healthy — something God clearly desires for you — without relying on him?
The fact is, you will never reach your optimum health without paying attention to the spiritual dimensions of your life. You have a body, but you are far more than just a body. Every area of your life affects every other area. For instance, it’s hard to be spiritually strong and mentally alert when you are emotionally stressed or physically fatigued. If you are spiritually and emotionally weak or ill, your body cannot perform at its peak. The Daniel Plan is about your total health, not just your physical fitness. For this reason, we must start with your relationship to God — the Creator who designed you, knows best how your body was made to operate, and has the power to help you make the changes that you want to see.
YOU NEED GOD TO CHANGE
Without God’s power in your life, you are just running on your own energy. God never meant for you to do that. It’s like having a laptop that’s unplugged; the battery will eventually drain and shut down the computer. Why would you live like that when God created you for so much more?
If you find yourself tired all the time, one reason may be that you are trying to solve all your problems, fulfill your responsibilities, and make all your changes on your own. One clue that this may be happening is when you worry more than you pray.
Think of it this way: You have a small battery inside you. It has a limited amount of energy. When it depletes, you shut down. At the same time, God offers you access to his unlimited power plant. All you need to do is plug in — and the power cord is prayer.
Stop trying, and start trusting. The key to a faith-filled life is not in trying harder. It’s not in psyching yourself up, but in relaxing in God’s grace, so he can do through you what he desires to do. Philippians 2:12 – 13 says, “Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you” (MSG).
God Got Me off the Couch
“The weekend that Pastor Rick spoke about the need to be healthy to fulfill God’s plan for our lives, he challenged those of us who were carrying a few extra pounds to write down the number of pounds we wanted to lose by Christmas and drop a card in the basket. I wrote down ‘25 pounds,’ hopeful that this would finally be the time it worked. At age 36, I was 288 pounds, probably headed toward all the health problems that overweight people have.
“I had no idea about the journey God was going to take me on. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t hear God speak to me. I just dropped a card in a basket. God knew what I did. God had just enrolled me in what I like to call Daniel Plan 1.0. When I woke up the next morning, God had taken over my physical life. I had not exercised in years. That day, I started small by going for a walk. I had not eaten well — ever. That day, I began to view food differently. My lifelong battle with my weight changed that day because God grabbed hold of me and changed my heart. As I write this note, I am 70 pounds lighter than I was six years ago.
“God got me off the couch six years ago, and he will get the credit when I cross the finish line of Ironman Arizona. I have swum, biked, and run nearly 20,000 miles in the last six years. Along the way, I have said many prayers of thanks that God has given me the ability and desire to be fit. I know of no greater way to worship God than to be outside enjoying his creation doing what he created me to do.”
— Joel Guerra
Later, in the same book, Paul says this: “I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me” (Philippians 4:13 GNT). Notice that it doesn’t say, “I have the strength for most conditions.” It says all conditions. That includes breaking bad habits and creating healthy ones.
Living by faith means you are attempting to do something you cannot do yourself. Anything you can do by your own effort obviously doesn’t require faith. But in the areas of your life that seem unchangeable — the intractable problems, the persistent areas of failure, the stubborn bad habits that won’t respond to willpower — these things require a power greater than you possess. Just ask anyone who has overcome an addiction through the Celebrate Recovery program.
You may have had so many failures at changing the way you eat or exercise or think or act that the possibility of lasting change feels like an unreachable goal. Well, to be honest with you, it probably will be — unless you plug into God’s power. What is impossible from a human standpoint is easy to God. With God, today’s impossibility is tomorrow’s miracle. Are you ready for one?
The Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). It will take faith to achieve and maintain the total health that God desires for you. But it begins with admitting that you don’t have enough power on your own to become all you’re meant to be. People of faith are those who admit that they can’t do it on their own. The journey starts with humility. Have you taken that first step yet?
For some people, it takes years of frustration and failures before they can admit that willpower alone doesn’t work to make the deepest changes. We need both a savior and a manager (or “Lord”) of our lives. Fortunately, God came to earth in Jesus to fulfill that role for us. It’s the reason Christmas is the biggest holiday on the planet. If we didn’t need a savior, God would not have wasted the time and energy to send one 2,000 years ago.
THE LOVE BEHIND THE POWER
To really understand God’s power, you have to know and believe his love for you. God loves you so much that he freely gives his power to work in your life. God proved his love by sending Jesus to die on the cross for you , even before you knew how much you needed that to be done for you. How great is God’s love for you?
Ephesians 3:17 – 19 says, “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully” (NLT). This verse reveals that God’s love for us is far greater than our human brains can comprehend. It is four-dimensional:
God’s love is wide enough to be everywhere. There is no place on this planet where God’s love isn’t present. There is no place in the universe where God’s love ends. In your life, you will go through many experiences that leave you feeling sad, discouraged, or alone. But you’re not alone. There will never be a moment in your life when God is not paying attention to you.
Faith Power
Kalei Kekuna had always struggled with her body image and being self-conscious. For many years she battled with an eating disorder. As she realized God’s power and love through The Daniel Plan, her focus shifted. “I learned that God loves me exactly the way that I am, unconditionally. It’s not necessarily about losing weight or looking a certain way. It’s more about making healthy choices that help me follow God’s plan for me.
“I wake up every morning and say, ‘God, I need help with this. Can you please just be there with me through this day as I make healthy choices and as I choose to go to the gym versus sitting on my couch, and as I choose the healthy salad versus the donut?’ Just knowing that he’s there the entire time helping me through this was a huge change for me.”
God’s love is long enough to last forever. Human love often withers and dies, because it is conditional. People say, “I love you if . . .” or “I love you because . . . ,” and when circumstances change, the love evaporates. But God’s love is unconditional, so he will never, never stop loving you. You cannot make God stop loving you, because his love is based on who he is, not what you do. It is based on his character, not your conduct. This doesn’t mean that God approves or likes everything you do. He doesn’t. But your sin does not stop him from loving you. It is this unconditional grace of God, not conditional approval, that is the foundation of The Daniel Plan.
God’s love is deep enough to handle anything. No matter what hurt you have experienced in the past, what problems you’re going through right now, or what pain you will face in the future, you can count on God’s love. There may be days when you feel you have hit bottom and could not possibly go any lower. Well, beneath what feels like the bottom is the bedrock of God’s love. Nothing is deeper than his love for you.
God’s love is high enough to overlook my sins. Jesus said, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47). Have you accepted his forgiveness and salvation by faith? This is where the Faith Essential begins. You can’t have the power of God in your life without Jesus in your life. It all starts with a relationship. Not rules. Not regulations. Not rituals. Not religion. It’s all about a relationship to God through his Son, Jesus.
God’s laws and commandments simply show our inability to do what’s right without his grace and power in us:
Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time (Galatians 3:21 MSG).
Resolutions and rules aren’t enough to change the human heart. For example, the government can create a law that makes racism illegal, but no law will transform a bigot into a kind, loving person. That kind of heart transformation requires the love of God inside.
The beginning of healthy change starts in the heart. If you haven’t yet opened your heart to God’s love, I urge you to do so right now, before you read another chapter. It’s the healthiest choice you will ever make. When you invite Jesus to be the Savior and Lord (manager) of your life, your past is forgiven, you get a new purpose for living, and you get a home in heaven. In addition, you plug into God’s power to change your life.
The Bible promises, “You will know . . . how very great is his power at work in us who believe. This power . . . is the same as the mighty strength which he used when he raised Christ from death” (Ephesians 1:18 – 20 GNT).
Here is a prayer I would urge you to pray. The words are not as important as the attitude of your heart. If you’re in a place where you can read this prayer aloud, I encourage you to do so. Otherwise, read it quietly to yourself:
Dear God, thank you for creating me and loving me so that I can have a relationship with you. Thank you for understanding the frustration I have felt in failing to change things in myself that need changing. I realize that without your help I am powerless to change my deepest habits, hurts, and hang-ups. I need a Savior, and I thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for me.
Jesus, I need your presence, your power, and your purpose in my life. I want to turn from my plans to your plan, and from depending on my power to your power. From now on, I want you to be the Lord and manager of my life. In faith, I humbly ask you to forgive my sins and my failures and help me to become what you intended for me to be. For the rest of my life, I want to get to know you better so I can trust you more. I pray this in your name. Amen.
HOW GOD’S POWER WORKS
Philippians 2:12 – 13 explains that lasting change and spiritual growth come as a result of our cooperation with God. We cannot achieve that on our own, but he will not do it without our cooperation. God supplies the resources and power for change, but we must make choices to activate those things in our lives. To put it another way: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
Notice two phrases: work out and work in . We are commanded to work out while God works in us! That’s the cooperation required for change. What does it mean to work out your salvation? Well, it doesn’t mean “work FOR” your salvation, because salvation cannot be earned. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8 – 9).
When you do a physical workout, you develop the muscles God has already given you. In these verses the Bible is talking about a spiritual workout — not to earn or gain your salvation, but to grow and develop the new life God has given you. So, in your growth and change, God has a part and you have a part. You work out, and God works in!
Let’s first look at God’s side of the equation (what he works in), then we will look at our side of the equation (what we work out).
1. God uses his Word to change us. The first tool God uses in changing us is the Bible. Through Scripture he teaches us how to live and how to change. Second Timothy 3:16 – 17 tells us, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (NLT). Another way of saying this is that God’s Word shows us (1) the path to walk on, (2) when we have gotten off the path, (3) how to get back on the path, and (4) how to stay on the right path.
If you are serious about changing your life in any significant way, you are going to have to get into the Bible. You need to read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, and apply it. Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Sometimes learning the truth about ourselves first makes us miserable — because we want to deny it — but ultimately, the truth is liberating.
The first element of The Daniel Plan is faith, and the way you grow your faith is by filling your mind with the truth of God’s Word.
2. God uses his Spirit to change us. The second resource God uses to change us is his Spirit within us. He doesn’t just offer advice from the sidelines. When we commit ourselves to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into our lives to empower and direct us (Romans 8:9 – 11). The Spirit of God gives us his strength to do what is right. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more” (NLT).
“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17 KJV).
Note that God’s goal in all the changes we make is that we become more and more like Christ. God’s number one purpose in our lives is to make us like Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make the child of God more like the Son of God. And what is Jesus like? His life on earth embodied the nine fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:23 – 24: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
3. God uses circumstances to change us. God’s ideal way to change us is through the Bible so that we can find out how we should live and then through his indwelling Spirit, who enables us to do it. Unfortunately, we can be too often stubborn, and we don’t change that easily or quickly. Bad habits get ingrained. So God brings in a third tool to work on us: circumstances! This refers to the problems and pressures, heartaches and hard times, difficulties and stress that we all experience.
Problems always get our attention, and the more painful they are, the more we pay attention. C. S. Lewis noted that God whispers to us in our pleasure but shouts to us in our pain. It often takes a painful situation to get our attention. We all know the truth of Proverbs 20:30: “Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways” (GNT). The truth is, we are more likely to change because we feel the heat than because we see the light! People rarely change until the pain exceeds the fear of change.
The interesting thing about how God uses circumstances is that their source makes no difference at all to him. We often bring problems on ourselves by our own faulty decisions, poor choices, bad judgments, and sins. Other times our problems are caused by other people. Sometimes the devil causes things to happen to us as he did to a man named Job in the Bible. But God says the source of the circumstance is irrelevant. He will still use it for your good and your growth if you cooperate with him.
Romans 8:28 – 29 is one of the great promises of the Bible: “We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose, and he has always known who his chosen ones would be. He had decided to let them become like his own Son” (CEV).
Shoe Lesson
“I wear shoes for comfort, not for style, and once they get broken in and very comfortable, I hate to give them up. A few years ago, I had a pair of shoes that I wore almost every day for over a year. They finally started getting holes in the bottom of them, but they were so comfortable that I continued to wear them. I just wouldn’t cross my legs when sitting on a platform so the audience couldn’t see the holes! I knew I needed to buy new shoes, but I kept putting it off. Then it rained for an entire week. After four days of soggy socks, I got motivated to buy some new shoes.
“The first step in change is usually discomfort!”
— Pastor Warren
God promises that he will fit everything — even your setbacks, relapses, and failures — into his plan and purpose for your life. God loves to turn stumbling blocks into stepping-stones and crucifixions into resurrections.
So God shows you how to change through the truth in the Bible, then his Spirit within you gives you the power to change. But if you ignore these, God will gladly use circumstances to get your attention. God loves you whatever way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way, and he will use whatever it takes to help you grow to spiritual maturity.
OUR PART IN CHANGE
IF GOD’S RESPONSIBILITY is to provide life-changing truth, Holy Spirit power, and custom-made experiences to help you change and grow, then what is your responsibility for personal change? You must develop three spiritual habits that will deepen your faith and develop your spiritual strength.
CHOOSE TO FILL YOUR MIND WITH GOD’S WORD EVERY DAY
Change is a matter of choice. We can’t just passively sit around doing nothing and expect our lives to get better. We must make healthy choices to use the resources God gives us, and the first healthy choice is to carefully choose what we think about.
It is often said, “You’re not what you think you are, but what you think about, you are!” Did you get that? If you are going to change your life, you must first change the way you think — your perceptions about God, about yourself, about life, about food, about health, and about everything else. Change always begins with new thinking. We must change the patterns of our mind. (We will look at this more in chapter 6 on Focus.)
The biblical word for personal change is repentance . Most people completely misunderstand the term. The popular conception of repentance is “Stop sinning! Quit doing bad things!” But the word actually means to change your mind . It comes from the Greek word metanoia , which means to change your perspective, think in a different way, make a mental U-turn. 2 Of course, if you change your mind, your behavior will follow, but repentance starts in the mind, not in actions.
Choosing to change your perspective and what you think about is your first responsibility in getting healthy. The Bible teaches that the way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change any behavior, you must start by challenging your unhealthy perspective on that subject. For example, if you have difficulty controlling your anger, don’t start with your actions; instead, begin with identifying and changing the thoughts that prompt you to anger. Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. We are not transformed by an act of our will, but by repentance — seeing everything from God’s perspective.
The Start of My Change
“When I repented and accepted God’s gift of salvation by grace, I changed my perspective on a lot of things. I began to think differently about God, good and evil, my past, my present, my future, my relationships, my money, my time, sex, work, play, and everything else.
“When you truly repent, you see everything differently. Having a new perspective changes your values. As the apostle Paul said, ‘I once thought all those things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done’ (Philippians 3:7 NLT).”
— Pastor Warren
Imagine that you have a speedboat with an autopilot that is set to head east across a lake, and you suddenly decide that you want to go west, in the exact opposite direction. What would you do?
You would have two options: The hardest way would be to grab the steering wheel and physically force the boat to go in the opposite direction than it was programmed to go. By sheer willpower you could force the boat to make a 180-degree turn. As long as you held onto the steering wheel, the boat would head in the new direction. But the entire time, you would feel the tension in your arms and body because you were forcing the autopilot to go against its programmed nature. You would feel stressed and uptight, and eventually you would get tired and let go of the steering wheel. At that point, the boat’s autopilot would immediately return to heading east.
The simpler and easier way to change the direction of the boat is to change the autopilot. Then it will naturally head in the direction you want it to go.
For a similar reason, this is why diets, quit-smoking plans, and other self-help efforts based on willpower eventually fail. The entire time you are forcing yourself to change, you are under tension because your old thought patterns are unconsciously telling you to keep doing what you’ve always done. We get tired of doing what feels “unnatural” and soon quit exercising, or start smoking again, or return to our bad habits and destructive ways of relating to others. We are victims of our own autopilots that we have programmed by repetition.
Your autopilot is the collection of thoughts and ideas in your mind that you believe to be true about yourself and what feels natural. Complete this sentence ten times, and you will have a good idea of what your mental autopilot is: “It’s just like me to . . .”
The good news is that God can change your mental autopilot far faster than you can. He specializes in giving you a new mind-set. That new mind-set will change the way you feel, which will change the way you act. I pointed out earlier that Jesus said the truth sets you free. When you begin to renew your mind with God’s Word, and you replace old lies, false ideas, and misconceptions with the truth, it will set you free from the habits and hang-ups that limit your life. Your actions will naturally begin to align with your new attitudes.
This process only happens when we follow God’s instructions. God’s Word gives us life-changing truth, but we must read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, and then practice it. When I use the word meditation , I am talking about biblical meditation as described in the book of Psalms, in Joshua 1:8, and in many other passages of the Bible.
What you think determines the way you feel. What you feel determines the way you act.
In many ways, biblical meditation is the exact opposite of eastern or New Age meditation, which is about emptying your mind and repeating a single word or mantra. In contrast, biblical meditation means taking a verse of the Bible, such as a promise or a command or a story, and seriously pondering its meaning. You think through the implications for and application of God’s truth to your life. This is the kind of meditation that David referred to when he repeatedly said, “I meditate on your Word day and night” (see Psalm 1:2; 119:148, etc.).
God makes some amazing promises to those who take the time to seriously think about his Word. Psalm 1:1 – 3 says, “Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord [the Bible], and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.” What a promise! Would you like to succeed at everything you do? God makes that promise to those who meditate on the Bible.
Seeing Things Differently
As a pastor, Tom Crick noticed a change in his spiritual life as he started The Daniel Plan. “If you’re constantly in the Bible, reading and doing your devotion time, all of a sudden you start to see things there that are really speaking to what you’re doing in the rest of your life.” Biblical principles that he would read before now had practical application to his health. Each day it was as if the Scriptures were encouraging him to eat better and boosting his energy. Then he started noticing the same thing happening with others who were doing The Daniel Plan.
“Like me, I saw people start to see things in the Scriptures that they didn’t see before. They could [read] a Scripture and say, ‘This applies to me, and this is how I’m getting through those tough times when I have a craving. [I saw others] using God’s Word to help them. . . . What a difference when you really start to figure out what Scripture means to your life.”
So how do you learn to meditate on God’s Word as David did? It’s not hard at all. You focus your attention on a single truth from the Bible and then continue to think about it throughout your day. If you look in a dictionary, you will find that a synonym for meditation is the word rumination . Rumination is what a cow does when it chews its cud. A cow eats some grass, chews it up, then swallows it. The grass soaks in the stomachs for a while, then the cow burps it up again — with renewed flavor! The cow chews on it a while more and finally swallows it again. That process is rumination. That cow is extracting every ounce of nourishment it can from that grass as it digests it.
In a similar way, biblical meditation is truth digestion. You aren’t putting your mind in neutral, but the exact opposite. Biblical meditation means engaging your mind to probe and consider and analyze what God has said in his Word. You think about a Bible verse over and over and over to digest its meaning and application to your life.
Philippians 4:6 – 7 explains the benefits of meditating on Scripture instead of worrying: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (NLT).
Easier Than You Think
You may be thinking that biblical meditation is a difficult skill to develop, but you actually already know how to do it if you know how to worry! When you take a fear or a problem or a negative thought and think about it over and over, that’s called worry. When you take a verse of Scripture and think about it over and over, that’s called biblical meditation.
If you are serious about improving your life and your health, you need to invest a minimum of 10 minutes a day reading the Bible, meditating on what you’ve read, writing down what you learn, and then talking to God in prayer about it. This healthy habit is called “daily quiet time.” If you would like to learn more about how to set up and structure a daily quiet time, go to danielplan.com/faith/quiettime for a booklet I wrote nearly forty years ago that has helped millions of people begin this habit. You can also use The Daniel Plan Journal to get started. You will be amazed at how much it transforms your life.
CHOOSE TO DEPEND ON GOD’S SPIRIT EVERY MOMENT
Everyone who trusts Christ to save them receives his Holy Spirit in their lives, but few people experience the power of the Holy Spirit because they still depend on their own power instead. Learning to depend on God’s Spirit to guide you, strengthen you, empower you, and use you is the second habit you must develop for spiritual strength.
Jesus gives a beautiful illustration of this in John 15. He compares our spiritual life to a grapevine and its branches. Jesus said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me” (John 15:5 CEV).
No grape branch can produce fruit without staying connected to the main vine, and you cannot produce spiritual fruit while disconnected from God’s Spirit. The fruitfulness of your life will depend on how dependent you are on the Holy Spirit. Attempting to bear fruit (and making positive changes) on your own power is as foolish as tying apples on the branches of a dead apple tree. From a distance, it might look as if the tree is alive and fruitful, but on closer inspection, people would realize the fruitfulness is fake.
Many “religious” people try to fake fruitfulness. They tie on all kinds of good activities — such as attending church services, helping the poor, and being polite and generous to others — but there really is no spiritual life or power inside them, because they are not connected to God. All their “spiritual” activities are just for show. When you get close to them, you can see that they don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.
So how do you develop a vibrant, life-giving relationship to God? The same way you develop any other relationship! It takes time, it takes talking, and it takes trust. To develop a friendship with God, you have to be in continual conversation with him, listening to him through his Word and talking with him in prayer. If you are not talking to God throughout your day, you certainly aren’t depending on him. Prayer is far more than a once-a-day quiet time or a memorized blessing before each meal. God wants to have a running conversation with you!
What should you pray about? Everything! Here’s a simple rule: If it’s worth worrying about, then it is worth praying about. If you prayed as much as you worry, you would have a whole lot less to worry about.
My Daily Conversation
“As I work through my day, I often find myself praying after each task, ‘What’s next, Lord?’ And before I walk into any room for a meeting, I always say a silent prayer, asking God to give me wisdom for that meeting. Prayer is the key to staying connected to God, and staying connected is the key to God’s power and effectiveness. I recently tweeted this: ‘Much prayer — much power. Little prayer — little power. No prayer — no power.’ If I am not quietly talking to God as I do my work, I am not depending on him at that moment. And if I don’t talk to God about what I’m doing, it shows that I’m doing it on my own power.”
— Pastor Warren
CHOOSE TO TRUST GOD IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE
You cannot control everything that happens to you. In fact, most of what happens around you is completely out of your control. But you do have control over two important factors: You control your response, and you control how much you choose to trust God, regardless of your circumstances.
Viktor Frankl, a Jew, was sent to one of the Nazi death camps of World War II. In his powerful classic, Man’s Search for Meaning , Frankl wrote that while he was a prisoner at Dachau, the guards stripped him of everything he had. They took his identity. They took his wife and family. They took his clothes. They even took his wedding ring. But, he said, there was one thing that no one could take from him: his freedom to choose his response and attitude. He wrote, “They offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 3 No guards could take that away from Viktor Frankl. It was his choice.
None of us knows what will happen in the future, but we can control how we react and respond. We choose whether something will make us bitter or better. God gave us that freedom, and he is watching how we respond to events that don’t go our way. What matters in life is not so much what happens to us, but what happens in us.
One of the most famous examples of that principle is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph was betrayed by his jealous older brothers and sold into slavery. Years later, when they met again, the brothers feared retaliation, but Joseph said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). That is true for you, too. Over your lifetime you will encounter people who intend to hurt you. But God’s purpose for your life is greater than any problem you face, and he intends to use it for good, as Romans 8:28 promises. Anyone can bring good out of good, but God can bring good out of bad — if you will trust him in every circumstance.
Sometimes circumstances that look as if they are meant to destroy us end up being situations that develop us. That is why James 1:2 – 4 says, “When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (NLT).
Circumstances are the third tool God uses to change us, grow us, and make us more like Christ. Knowing this keeps us from becoming resentful or bitter. Romans 5:3 – 4 says, “We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope” (NCV).
This has been God’s plan from the very beginning. When God decided to create human beings, he also decided to make us in his own image (Genesis 1:27). What does that mean? Not that we will become gods (we won’t), but that we will become godly, having the same moral qualities of love, kindness, goodness, justice, and integrity that God has. He wants us to develop Christ-like character, which is more important than our appearance, our achievements, or our acquisitions in life.
The reason why your character is so important is that you are going to take it to heaven. You are not taking your career to heaven. You won’t take your car or clothes or any of the material things you have collected on earth. But you are taking your character! So ultimately, it is the most important thing you can develop on earth. The five Essentials of The Daniel Plan — Faith, Food, Fitness, Friends, and Focus — will do far more than help you get healthier physically. They will help you deepen your faith and develop your character, which, in the long run, will matter even more than how you feel here and now. Christ-like character will reap eternal rewards that you will enjoy forever.
We want you to remember a very important truth: God is not waiting for you to get physically healthy or spiritually mature before he starts loving you or enjoying you. He loves you right now, and he will be cheering you on at every stage of your growth and development. He is not waiting for you to cross the finish line first. He is smiling at you as you run the race.
You might be thinking, But what if I happen to stumble or fall in the race? God will still love you. Imagine this scene: If parents are watching their child run in a race at school and the child stumbles and falls, what do loving parents do? They cheer even more loudly. They don’t criticize or belittle the child. They yell, “I know you can do it! Get up! I believe in you! Don’t be discouraged! It’s just a minor setback! Keep going! I know you can make it to the finish line!”
That is what God is saying to you right now. “I’m proud of you for trying, and I’m going to be helping you. I will supply the power you need if you will spend time with me reading my Word every day, if you will depend on my Spirit inside you every moment, and if you will trust me to use every circumstance in your life for your good and growth.”
So this is your moment to grasp God’s love and power. The moment you get a clearer view and stronger foundation of faith. The moment when God starts to change you from the inside out.
Reflect and Take a Step . . .
Faith is the foundation of The Daniel Plan, and learning to rely on God’s power is the key to lasting change. Don’t be afraid to share everything with God. He is waiting to hear from you. Start with this simple prayer:
“Father, I want to do what I need to get healthy and glorify you. I know I can’t do this on my own. I’ve tried and I’ve failed, and I’m nervous that I will fail again. I’m willing to do my part, Lord, and I’m going to faithfully trust that you are working to help me succeed. I’m learning that you want me to succeed more than I do. Help me see your hand in this quickly, and keep me encouraged as I work toward better health. Amen.”
Daily Dedication
God wants you to trust him one day at a time. You don’t need to be concerned about tomorrow until tomorrow. You don’t need to be concerned about next week until next week. Don’t stress about all the future steps necessary to make you healthier.
We suggest dedicating your health to God at the start of each day because you need something greater than yourself to stick it out, particularly when the journey gets tough. Our prayer for you is “that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well” (3 John 1:2). Start each day with a prayer like this:
God, I dedicate my faith, food, fitness, focus, and friendships to you on my journey toward health. I recognize that the benefits of the Daniel Plan are more than physical; they are eternal. Please fill me with the energy and strength I need to do what you want me to do in these five areas. Build my faith. Change my views on food and fitness for the better. Improve my focus and motivation. And please surround me with people who encourage and support my journey toward better health. May I see the progress and changes that come with healthier decisions and use this to encourage others and serve you. I give my body, mind, and heart to you.
