The Bible says the soul is more important than the body. But what about when your body is hindering the soul? On the next Haven Today, Dr. Jim Garlow joins Charles Morris in sharing not just how he lost 80 pounds, but more important, how the Lord has brought him closer though that process. Don't miss part two of a program called "Thin Again -- but Full with Jesus".
Thin Again But Full of Jesus (pt. 2 w/Dr. Jim Garlow)
The bible says that the soul is more important than the body; but what about when your body is hurting your soul? Welcome to Haven Today I’m Charles Morris and we will be joined in the next few minutes by Dr. Jim Garlow. He’ll not only be sharing that he lost eighty pounds but more important how the Lord brought him closer. This is part two of a program called Thin Again but Full of Jesus. First lets be reminded of what we all really need and that’s first and foremost not to shed a little weight but to be anchored to the solidness of the Savior Jesus Christ:
Song: The Solid Rock
Sung by: Haven Quartet
This is Haven Today and we are back again on the program and with us from one of the most beautiful cities in America, San Diego. We are joined again by Dr. Jim Garlow who is the senior pastor at one of America’s more well known churches; Skyline Wesleyan Church - Jim welcome back to Haven Today.
(Dr. Garlow)
Thank you, I am happy to be back with you.
(Charles)
And for any body that didn’t listen to the program yesterday, you just got done losing eighty pounds and by God’s grace you are still down eighty pounds aren’t you?
(Dr. Garlow)
That’s right, and each day since I met that goal I monitor my caloric intake and exercise. I am on a maintenance program and I’ve actually continued to lose a little bit though I didn’t plan too in these months since I met my goal.
(Charles)
But you are not too worried about that because you are exercising and you are eating the right things. Jim just in a nut shell tell us and anyone who missed the program yesterday how you did it.
(Dr. Garlow)
I went to my doctor and said, “Doctor I need help”, and so he put me on a medically supervised primarily but not exclusive liquid diet and I lost eighty pound in one hundred and sixty days and one half pound a day on a delightful diet of protein drinks and I saw a doctor each week and a nurse each week and a EKG every thirty five pounds and blood work done every two weeks and a lot of accountability and attended weekly classes and then phoned each week. So it was a very regimented highly structured medically monitored program.
(Charles)
As a result of this is your blood pressure better? Is your energy level up? What physical signs can you tell us?
(Dr. Garlow)
Well for almost everybody their blood pressure gets better and their energy goes up. Now in my case my blood pressure was excellent before and my cholesterol was excellent before and it just tweaked up just a little bit and it immediately improved there but I had not had blood pressure or cholesterol problems ironically even though I was very much over weight and I just happened to be one of those guys that had a tremendous amount of energy before. I am expending so much of it now in an exercise program that my energy level is pretty much a constant; I really never lack energy. My concern was simply this; there are a lot of obesity related diseases. I wasn’t having any of them except my right knee was beginning to talk back to me a little bit. And I thought that if I don’t address this now my body is going to give out much quicker so I decided to take care of it now. It was a concern over potential diseases that caused me to get on this track.
(Charles)
That’s right. If you didn‘t do something in your fifties by the time you got into your sixties or seventies you would really be in trouble. And it is amazing there are people that are much younger than you that are feeling the effects of so many extra pounds. Jim, tell people about this book that we had offered earlier in the year called Thin Again; it is actually a grace centered perspective on losing weight. You are actually in this spiritual journey beginning to think about writing a book aren’t you?
(Dr. Garlow)
Yes I am. I really wasn’t but people came to me so often and asking me, “How did you change?” and “How did you do this?” I am kind of fascinated with the question myself. Why after twenty years of failure in this area, I just consistently failed and I’m not proud of that I am very ashamed of that, but somehow a switch in me began to switch and I began to walk a different pathway. What happens in that? And out of that I’ve seen so many spiritual dynamics. I would go to this class week after week, and I have not missed a single class in over thirty weeks, and I would go to this class and I would observe the conversations between people that were struggling, people like me, and the dialog between them and the instructor. I saw so many spiritual principles emerging and it was really an eye opener to me. Out of that I’m trying to encourage and help people so kind of a daily devotional thought-for-the-day kind of book is actually what I am putting together right now.
(Charles)
I know you have shared that with me and we will put that up on our website here and we will have you back on the program when you get the book finished. I’m actually looking at the first few words; those are pretty powerful words that can really relate to other things besides weight loss in our life.
(Dr. Garlow)
It really can. The first devotional thought should be on thinking; how to think right thoughts - you think of Paul’s writing to the church in Philipi. Charley Shed, a pastor, years ago wrote a book called The Fat Is In Your Head. And I thought about that, I had read that book thirty years ago in Houston. And, you know, he’s right. The problem is in our thinking. I’ve really been fascinated on what does it really take for a person to finally change? In other words, during twenty years I was unsuccessful changing my lifestyle and yet something happen internally that caused me to take the necessary steps. I tried to say ok, what is it that caused a person to finally be willing, let’s say in their spiritual life, be willing to submit to Christ and begin walking with him? What caused me to change? I began to realize just basic things that won’t surprise us but these are the kind of things in our life that we need to see: One was just desperation. In other words I became convinced that the capacity to change is in direct proportion of the amount of felt desperation we have. The higher desperation, it finally reaches a point where you say, “I don’t have to be the same as I am.” That is one of the indicators that we can actually make a transformation in our life; be it spiritual, be it physical, emotional, be it in what ever arena.
(Charles)
You didn’t change on your own. This is not just Jim Garlow out of his own strength deciding that he is going to lose eighty pounds. Somehow the Lord was at work there in you.
(Dr. Garlow)
In terms of the Lord it was complete surrender. I said, “Ok God I am going to give up my distinctive taste. My spirit is going to rule over my mind and my mind is going to rule over my body. And that body is not going to determine what I am going to eat this day or whether or not I exercise.” Some people love exercising and I admire them, I’m not there. I’m not there at all but I exercise every single day. I was speaking on the east coast last week and it was 10:45 pm and I said to the driver, “Drive me to a fitness center, leave me there and I will walk home.” And I did in the rain that night. I can not miss this anymore.
(Charles)
You didn’t even go in the fitness center. They dropped you off there and you walked back to the hotel.
(Dr. Garlow)
I did. It was midnight in a city where I had never been before in the rain. I thought this is crazy but I thought no I’m obeying God and something in me just had to change. I’m not he kind of guy that likes exercise but I do it because it’s right to do it.
(Charles)
Wow. This is Haven Today and you are listening to Dr. Jim Garlow the senior pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego and he has lost eighty pounds and he is my brother in the Lord. Jim thanks for kind of exposing yourself a little bit with the weight loss and what the Lord has taken you through in the last few months.
(Dr. Garlow)
Well thank you and it is a delight to be on with you.
(Charles)
Eighty pounds Jim, that’s just incredible. I know one of the reasons why I had to have you on the program is because I saw one of those before and after pictures that you had shared over at our agency. We both use the same agency Ambassador and you probably have had people that just could not recognize you.
(Dr. Garlow)
That’s right, we were coming out of one of our weekend worship services and a lady asked if she could speak to the senior pastor and I said, “I’m him.” And she said “No, the senior pastor. I want to talk to Jim.” I said, “Yes I know, I’m him.” She would not believe me. I had to go get another lady in the church to convince her that I was in fact the senior pastor.
(Charles)
(Laughing) That’s great. Well let us talk for a minute about a verse that Christians bandy about in many ways but we don’t always take it seriously and that is our bodies if we are in Christ is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now what does that mean and how did that apply to you in losing weight?
(Dr. Garlow)
Wow that is a very good question because I hyper-spiritualized this issued and said, “Well I’m doing kingdom work” or “My spiritual life is in great shape” or “This is just a physical body, my spirit is going to last forever”, I had to come to a holistic hubristic biblical understanding in this area. I was de-compartmentalizing my body and my spirit and my emotions in the various units where God sees me as a whole. My congregation has seen me become increasingly spiritually vibrant since I lost the weight. One of the guys called me aside last October on a Sunday night and said, “You’re not seeing what we’re seeing.” And I said, “What is that?” He said that they were seeing a much more energized person spiritually because of that weight loss. It’s interesting that in Romans 12:1 said that we are presenting our bodies before him and I was failing to do that. I realized that I needed to bring that before him and say, “I yield this part of me to you” in other words it was a way of saying that “You have all of me.” That was another step in my journey.
(Charles)
When you think of this as well, when our Lord walked many miles from Galilee to Jerusalem and my goodness when he would spend the night with Martha and Mary and their brother, I mean, that’s quite a walk to go down the kid rend and up the other side to where they lived, but you know, he presented his body too didn’t he?
(Dr. Garlow)
That’s exactly right and there is no reason for us to become some present day Gnostic as I spoke about yesterday. Where we de-compartmentalize and we say ok the spirit world is good and sort of the physical material world innately evil. God doesn’t view it that way. That is not a Christian view. He sees everything that he created, in God creating us he said, ooh that is really good. So I better treat it with the same level of respect.
(Charles)
That verse that I threw out for you a little bit earlier, I Cor. 6:19, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God and that you are not your own? I found that pretty significant. We don’t belong to ourselves do we Jim?
(Dr. Garlow)
That was one of the key points that gripped me in my personal journey as when I signed over ownership my body to God. Now if I borrowed your car and I drive it, I am now stewarding what is not mine and I will drive more carefully than I would my own car. Once I realize that this body is not my own I’m going to take care of it more carefully as if it were my own.
(Charles)
Amen. Let me just go ahead and I’ll let you be the commentator on the passage. I will read the next verse I Cor. 6:20, “For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.” You comment.
(Dr. Garlow)
I have never stated what I am about to say in a public setting, but for years I knew that my lack of taking care of my body, my overweight condition, harmed to some measure even if it were small at points but harmed to some measure my creditability for Christ. That bothered my enormously that I would do anything that would harm my creditability or my witness for Christ. Now I don’t say that to be preachy to others. I am looking in a mirror as I say this figuratively speaking that I don’t want any part of my life to be a detractor from the power of my witness for Christ. I knew that my overweight condition was exactly that.
(Charles)
Well, I’ve got to say that what you are saying is convicting to me and it is probably convicting to a lot of other people listening right now. Because of Christ, because we are in Christ, because we want to be his representative, we want to glorify him; give us a little advice. You can preach at us if you want too. Give us some advice. You are still working your way through this yourself but how do we lose weight so that we can serve the Lord better?
(Dr. Garlow)
Well it is interesting; I walked into the first day of class, remember I went to weekly class the whole time I lost the weight and now I’m in maintenance for one year or I can extend it longer if I so choose. I have weekly classes that I go too, it’s interesting that every seven days, and the same way we go to the house of the Lord once every seven days to cultivate our spirits, and I walked into the first day of class and the teacher said, “You don’t have to have willpower to succeed in this program.” I thought well great. She went on to say, “The reason why I say that is because if you did have will power you wouldn’t be in this class in the first place but you do have to have skill-power.” I sat there and I wondered what skill-power really means. I boiled it down to this; it means understanding what they are telling me to do and just doing it. And I realized the power of obedience, the power of obeying, and the power of humility too. I used to being a teacher and I’m used to standing in front of crowds. I realized that this is the time I was going to have to be quiet and become the student. I coveted within myself at that moment, “God with your help I’m going to do every single thing they tell me to do. I’m tired of failure in this arena. I hunger for success and honor you and now I’m simply going to follow their direction.” And I did precisely that over a course of time. I began to see this transforming change take place in me. I didn’t eighty pounds plus over night. I only gain one fifth of an ounce a day for twenty years. Sin is pretty deceptive. You do a little bit and you slide the bar up and you do a little bit and you slide the bar up. I’d fill a little bit of time and kept justifying it over the course of time and one day I realized how tremendously far I had gone in this. So I said, “Okay Lord, I have slipped up for twenty years in this direction help me to see what I can become.” And God gave me a visual aid and that visual aid was a suit that had been hanging in my closet for twenty eight years. I had purchased it when I was a graduate student, I was touring England and doing studies of the life of John Wesley, and I said, “Lord with your help I’m going to wear that.” And one hundred and sixty days later I wore that suite. It was kind of funny how I wore it; I walked up in front of the congregation to preach that morning wearing my old suit the one that was designed for me to be eighty pounds heavier and of course it was just like a huge tent hanging on me, and I said, “Well folks it still fits except when I raise my hands to praise the Lord….” the pants fell off and I was wearing a suit underneath and I stepped right out of the old suit and said, “This is the suit I’ve wanted to wear for twenty eight years.” For me that was a visual aid, by the way I am keeping the old suit just as a vision of what I could become if I were to slip back into my old ways, but let God show you the vision of what you can become. Where are the areas he wants to grow you too? It may not be eighty pounds, it might be five pounds or it may have nothing to do with weight loss. But the point is; let God stamp deep within your heart what he sees you can become and then embrace his vision of you. I don’t find myself very good at self discipline. What I am trying to focus on is God’s discipline. In other words, God so applied to my heart that I can have skill power even if I don’t have will power; the power of obedience, the power of simply doing the right thing.
(Charles)
Wow. Jim will you lead us in prayer?
(Dr. Garlow)
Father I lift up all who are listening right now and I just ray for protection over them and that nothing that I have said is condemning, that would just cripple them. If it is convicting by your spirit then that will empower whatever is needed in the individual lives. Father don’t allow for me to become preachy, keep me aware of whatever progress I’ve made you cause me to make it and I can slip back into my old ways so just give me a healthy reverence for any conversation that I with anybody on this topic. I pray for every listener right now that they would be gripped with your dream of them. May they see whatever arena it is whether it is physical, spiritual, emotional, physiological, intellectual, whatever growth areas you have, may they be able to embrace the dream and the vision that you have for them and Lord may it come and come quickly. We pray this in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
(Charles)
Jim Garlow. Thank brother. We’ll talk to you again when you get that book out and thank you so much for being on Haven.
(Jim Garlow)
It is an honor to be with you and Charles I have shared this with you once before that your radio broadcast years ago on one of the most terrifying days of my life as I was getting ready to walk in to a very comprehensive exam in my doctorial program. I was in a PhD program at Drew University back in New Jersey and just before I walked in to what was going to be an eight hour exam Haven came on the air and I stood there beside my vehicle with my radio on and my heart pounding because of the test that was upcoming, and I cannot tell you what that one session did for me as you came on the air with your distinctive music it was just a calming of my heart. So every time I’ve heard the word Haven since that time I just praise God for you and the work your doing.
(Charles)
Jim thank you for sharing that with us and just God bless you in your ministry.
(Jim)
And blessings on you as well.
(Charles)
Dr. Jim Garlow, thank you for sharing with us not just about how you have lost weight and how the Lord has brought you closer to him but also Haven Ministries has impacted your life. This program has impacted other people as well. We have been hearing from people the last couple of days with Jim on the air with us. Here is one woman who wrote to me from Arizona and she wrote, “I listen every morning as I get ready for work and I love the program. My husband walked out on me and two little boys back in 1989 and I got very angry and walked away from God.” From 1989 to 1998 she really put on the weight and she weighed over four hundred pounds then. But now she is reporting to us that the Lord pulled her back out of the mire and the muck that she was in and filled her with his Holy Spirit and from that time until now she said that she has lost over two hundred pounds and she gives God all the praise honor and glory. It’s a long story but it is an awesome story and she wanted to share it with us and I’m glad we could.
Here is another person from the Buffalo New York area who has just tried everything since 2004. Her and her husband had tried to diet and they were on Weight Watchers for seven months and each lost about thirty pounds. Since the onset of 2005, they got through Thanksgiving and Christmas pretty well, they have lost their incentive and have regained 2/3’s of the weight back in two short months. She says that she listens to Haven Today at lunch in her office but she is through just thinking and rationalizing and she knows that God wants her to go deeper. So she thanks us for these programs with Dr. Jim Garlow.
Well God is at work in our lives and he wants to work through our bodies as well. I’m being convicted with these times that we have had with Dr. Jim Garlow. What are we going to do about it? Let’s not just listen to the radio program let’s take some action steps. We have this book that I have mentioned to you called Thin Again. It has a biblical approach, the only one frankly I’ve ever seen, that has a grace centeredness to it. We have that as a resource to you and it can be a resource for you as a thank you for your gift to Haven Today. We also want to send you the two programs with Dr. Jim Garlow from yesterday and today. You can go to our website at haventoday.org, that’s haventoday.org and you will find the resource you need there. We are a listener supported ministry and rely on your financial gift to keep us on the air. If you have a prayer request, we would love to pray for you. You call send us your gift an I want to remind you that we depend on gifts from friends like you not only to sustain us but to grow this ministry to reach people who need Jesus. If you have a prayer request, we would love to pray for you. You can call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN, that’s 1-800-654-2836 or you can write to us at: Haven Today, P.O. Box 79997, Riverside, CA 92513 and in Canada at: Haven Today, Box 6800, Vancouver, BC V6B 4C9.
I’m Charles Morris and thank you for being with me. Please come back tomorrow where Jesus will be praised and lifted up here on Haven Today.
