Yesterday ended is a podcast dedicated to the healing words of Jesus Christ and his story of redemption. Each podcast contains an original poem so that I can portray a confession of our faith of scripture in unique and succinct ways. Come with me on a journey to become a new creation and to declare old things dead and our life anew in Christ. What we meditate on will determine the direction and fruit of our lives. Let's live today speaking the words of life.
The victory we have in Christ can be felt in our everyday life. We can overcome depression. We can overcome fear. We can be confident. We can be free from worry. We can be free from anxiety. We can have emotional healing. We can have hope. We can be set free from our past. The Bible declares the goodness of God. The Bible is more than Christian psychology it is truth. The truth of God brings mental health, spiritual health and physical health. We can walk in peace. We can overcome the traumas of life.
What are you eating for dinner tonight? What’s on the menu? Is the food you eat nutritious? Does your food taste good? More importantly, what about your mental diet? Welcome to yesterday ended, healing the traumas of life. Do you enjoy the foods you eat? Both physical and mental? And to the point, is your mental diet yummy? I’m your host Dennis Dobbin, and I’m here to teach you about mental food that’s worth going back for seconds. Give a listen.
What are you eating for dinner tonight? What's on the menu? Is the food you eat nutritious? Does your food taste good? More importantly, what about your mental diet? Welcome to yesterday ended healing the traumas of life. Do you enjoy the foods you eat, both physical and mental? And to the point, is your mental diet yummy? I'm your host, Dennis Dobin, and I'm here to teach you about mental food that's worth going back for seconds. Give a listen. But then I looked around and found a quality high polyphenol olive oil for a lot less. It's supposed to work wonders in many ways for your health. I've also started to work on walking at least a mile every day. By the grace of God and his spirit quickening my mortal body, I am a healthy sixty-eight and a half year old man. I went to get my cataract surgery on my right eye a couple weeks ago. The pre-op paperwork is multiple pages. One thing they asked for is a list of the medications you're taking. They had a look of surprise when I said, I don't take any medications. The word of God is the foundation of the health of my life. Proverbs chapter four verses twenty through twenty two. My son, attend to my words, incline thine heart unto my sayings, let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. So how's your health doing these days? Your mental health as well as your physical health. The old saying is you are what you eat, so what are you spiritually and mentally dining on? And is it tasty enough to be going back for seconds? Junk food or fine dining, what do you eat? Is it good like organic whole wheat or just something syrupy, sweet? Is it natural and organic or a highly processed GMO meat? You're concerned for your natural body, but does your mind take a back seat? Body, soul, and spirit, the parts that make you you. You need good food for your body, something tasty to chew. For your soul, emotions, mind, and will, mashed potatoes won't do. You need the pure word of God for your heart to be made new. So in your daily diet, how much of God's word do you consume? Are you continuing to dine on the past, or for the truth have you made room? Are you going back for seconds on things of gloom and doom? Or are you dining daily on the Word of God? So every aspect of your life will bloom. As my recurring listeners will know, I've been in a battle to lose weight for some time. I started back in the beginning of twenty twenty four and did well until the end of the year when I went on a vacation and then the holidays hit, and I lost sight of my goal. To be truthful, I kind of gave up. But now I am back to working on my physical health again and losing some weight. On the spiritual side of life, for many years now I have had the habit of worshiping the first thing in the morning. I speak in tongues for about 30 minutes or so. For those of you who don't speak in tongues yet, you can check out season four, episode 38, on my episode of How to Speak in Tongues. Then I have, in the last couple of years, become far more faithful to praying for a period of time for family and friends and the body of Christ. Then I spend some time reading the Bible. As my schedule has opened up in the last couple of years, I have also endeavored to just spend time being quiet with the Lord. It shouldn't be amazing, but when we show up, he shows up. I have felt the manifest presence of the Lord quite often as I turn in my heart towards him and rest in him. This has become my pattern because I believe the truth found in Psalm thirty four, verse eight. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. When I was a kid there were certain foods I wouldn't want to try. They were usually vegetables, of course. But now I love eating my veggies. In my youth I had to take the risk of eating something yucky. At some point in our life we have to make a determination whether or not we are going to turn towards God and see what he's like by reading the Bible. There's a point in time where we have to taste and see. I have found that truly the Lord is good, and I've learned to trust in him, and therefore I am blessed. So when you turn to the Lord, what did you taste? Psalm one nineteen verse one hundred three. How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. I shared this once before, but it's pertinent and worth repeating. Many years ago I got a candy bar as a prop for a drawing I was doing for a t-shirt design. I drew a picture of the candy bar wrapper, but changed the candy bar name to God's Word. I changed the manufacturer to Numa Products. I listed the ingredients as 100% Word of God. The first line of the advertising slogan above the candy bar was sweeter than honey. And below the candy bar it said, but not a snack. If we're just snacking on God's word, we will be missing out on the great nutrition it can provide and the health and the blessings. We can drink milk or we can get into the meat of the word. Where are you in your spiritual diet? We must be as intentional in our intake of our spiritual food as we are our physical food. Depending on your lifestyle and physical needs, you may eat one or two or three meals a day. There are some people who eat one meal a day all day long. That's not me, of course. What is your attitude towards God's word? What does your heart do when you see your Bible on your desk or coffee or nightstand? Are you excited or do you think, oh yeah, I should read that today? Consider the attitude of Jeremiah, we find in chapter fifteen, verse sixteen. Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart, for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. In this case, the eating of the word was a figurative statement. He read the word with such intent as to digest what he was reading. It wasn't a quick read. He took it into his heart and thought about it deeply. God's word was the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Psalm 119, verse 162 says, I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. Not too long ago I opened a drawer in my desk and discovered three small fun-sized candy bars that I had forgotten about. I rejoiced, chocolate, yummy. How do we think about God's word? Is it yummy? Ezekiel had a vision, and this is what he was told and his response. Ezekiel chapter three, verse three. And he said to me, Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. Here in this vision, he literally ate the scroll, and it was as sweet as honey. When it comes to developing an attitude towards the Bible, one thing we have to check is who do we believe the author is? Do we think it was a bunch of guys that wrote what they wanted? Or is God really the author? Is it really God's word? If we trust that the Bible is the word of God, then we can go to it with confidence. The Apostle Peter had a few things to say about the quality of the scriptures. We find that in 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory in virtue. How do you obtain the knowledge of him? The knowledge of God. If the Bible really is God's word, as it declares, then this verse tells us that all things that pertain to life and godliness can be had through the knowledge of God. What we really need to know about life and godliness, which is a true spiritual relationship with God, can be found in the Bible. The question is, how much time are we spending reading the Bible and are we willing to go back for seconds? Will we continue in the Word as Jesus spoke about in John chapter 8, verse 31? Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. Forgive the shifting of my analogy from eating to where we live, but this verse is very important. If you continue in my word, literally means if you live in my word. That's far more than just going back for seconds. It's in the continuing that we become disciples. Seconds, thirds, fourths, daily routine. The word disciple means discipline, which means you're doing things intentionally and repeatedly. That's going back for more than seconds, as I said. Going back to the eating analogy, let's look at first Timothy chapter four, verse six. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine whereunto thou hast obtained. In the context, the Apostle Paul is telling Timothy to teach the truth as opposed to lies and fables. Lies and fables do not feed us. Only the words of faith will nourish us. So what kind of nourishment have you gotten today? And if you've been building a relationship with the Lord for a while, what's on the menu? First Peter chapter two verses two and three. As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. If you are new to your Christian walk, spending time in the Gospels, the book of Acts, the books from Romans through Thessalonians will set your foundation. Don't start out reading Ezekiel or Leviticus. Reading the Psalms is awesome. In Psalms you have at least three different writers. David, who was so many different things. He was a king, and he was a warrior, and he was a father, and he was unfortunately a scoundrel at the time. He was a musician and a few other things. Asaph was a singer and musician. And then Hezekiah was also a king and a warrior and a writer of some of the psalms. They talk about their lives. There's so many different styles and subject matters in the Psalms, but many of them give us great detail as to who the Lord is. It shows us the relationship God had with his men. It shows how God came to rescue them at times. Psalm 119 is one of my favorites. It is the longest Psalm with 176 verses, and it helps us develop the proper attitude towards Scripture. Psalm 119 verse 97 declares, How love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day. That's the type of attitude we should strive for. For many years now I have been reading the New Testament over and over again. I start in Matthew and go through the book of Revelation, but each time I do it in a different version. It usually takes me about six months to go through. Currently I'm reading the New English translation. I've read the English Standard Version and it's quite good. I've read the Passion Translation, which comes from the Aramaic, and it has great notes in the electronic version that I use. And as you may notice, I quote most of my verses I use from the King James. That's what I grew up with. That's what I've memorized. At the time I started studying the Bible, way back when, there were no study tools like a concordance or lexicon for any other version, of which at that time there were only a few. So at that time, if you were going to study the Bible in depth, you used King James. So now on my phone and computer and iPad, I have roughly 25 English versions. And when I study, I compare them. That way I get the understanding of 25 sets of scholars. They don't all agree, but by reading so many different versions, when I come to a verse I want more clarity on, it gives me a broader understanding. But the ultimate teacher is the Holy Spirit. When we are chewing on some verse and trying to get everything out of it, it's time to turn to our spiritual teacher. The first time you read something, you probably won't get all of it because there's a lot in every verse. Therefore, it's worth going back for seconds. As I write this, it's late morning, and all I've had to eat is some yogurt. I'm hungry. It's time to get something to eat. I happened to read Ephesians chapter six this morning. At the beginning of the week I started reading Ephesians, and I ended up reading Ephesians chapter one three days in a row. There's a lot of meat on those bones. To receive the greatest deliverance and power in your life, you must have a great spiritual and mental diet of God's word. It's sweeter than honey, but it's not a snack. It's the word of God. It's the word of the creator of the heavens and the earth. And it's your father's word. I think it's time we all go back for seconds. God bless. Have a great day.
