This is a movie you NEED to see.  Check it out at http://www.fathead-movie.com/

Weight: 237.8

Lunch: Italian Sausage Link.

3 tbls heavy whipping cream with one pack splenda

Supper:  I think i will have some canned salmon fried in butter with a little cheese.

Exercise:  Run on treadmill for 2 miles then intervals.

Weight today : 239.2

Breakfast:  2 eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, 1 sausage patty

lunch: Italian Sausage link

Supper: 2 cheeseburger patties no bun, mayo and mustard

Exercise:   No formal exercise today, worked outside in the heat on front porch; ran with kids.

I have always struggled with my weight. It has been a constant source of frustration. Everyone who has ever struggled with their weight knows about the trials and frustrations and how mean kids can be. I was able, in my early 20s to whip myself into shape for about 4 years. When I got married and started having children, though, it all came back…. and much more.

A year and a half ago, I realized I had reached 290 pounds. I am only 5′6″. I was devastated. I started paying attention to what I ate and got down to about 260. I hovered there for this last year and a half.

Last month I decided I was tired of this and really wanted to get my life back. I had been reading Jimmy Moore’s “Livin La Vida Low Carb” blog for quite some time and doing a lot of low carb research. I decided to take the plunge and started on the Atkins Diet. In the first month, I dropped over 20 pounds. I have had something weird happen this week though and have gained a few pounds back due to some water retention, but it is quickly coming back in line.

I have set a goal to be at 180 pounds by my 38th birthday, which is November 17, 2009. I will be journaling here and telling all the gory details, the good, the bad and the downright scary. I hope you join me to see what happens.

Weight today : 241.8

from: Forster and Marston’s God’s Strategy In Human History.

JUSTIN MARTYR c.100-165 A.D.

“But that you may not have a pretext for saying that Christ must have been crucified, and that those who transgressed must have been among your nation, and that the matter could not have been otherwise, I said briefly by anticipation, that God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand.

IRENAEUS of Gaul c.130-200. Against Heresies XXXVII

“This expression, ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not,’ set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free (agent) from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will (toward us) is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves . . .”

“If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give counsel to do some things and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free-will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free-will in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.”

ATHENAGORAS of Athens (2nd century). Embassy for Christians XXIV

“Just as with men who have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice (for you would not either honor the good or punish the bad; unless vice and virtue were in their own power, and some are diligent in the matters entrusted to them, and others faithless), so is it among the angels”

THEOPHILUS of Antioch (2nd century). To Autolycus XXVII

“For God made man free, and with power over himself . . . now God vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him. For as man, disobeying, drew death on himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting.”

TATIAN of Syria (flourished late 2nd century). Address XI

“Why are you ‘fated’ to grasp at things often, and often to die? Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in it. Live to God, and by apprehending Him lay aside your old nature. We were not created to die, but we die by our own fault. Our free-will has destroyed us; we who were free have become slaves; we have been sold through sin. Nothing evil has been created by God; we ourselves have manifested wickedness; but we, who have manifested it, are able again to reject it.”

BARDAISAN of Syria c.154-222. Fragments

” ‘How is it that God did not so make us that we should not sin and incur condemnation?’

if man had been made so, he would not have belonged to himself but would have been the instrument of him that moved him . . . And how, in that case, would a man differ from a harp, on which another plays; or from a ship, which another guides: where the praise and the blame reside in the hand of the performer or the steersman . . . they being only instruments made for the use of him in whom is the skill? But God, in His benignity, chose not so to make man; but by freedom He exalted him above many of His creatures.”

CLEMENT of Alexandria c.150-215. Stromata Bk ii ch. 4

“But we, who have heard by the Scriptures that self-determining choice and refusal have been given by the Lord to men, rest in the infallible criterion of faith, manifesting a willing spirit, since we have chosen life and believe God through His voice.”

Stromata Bk iv ch. 12

“But nothing is without the will of the Lord of the universe. It remains to say that such things happen without the prevention of God; for this alone saves both the providence and the goodness of God. We must not therefore think that He actively produces afflictions (far be it that we should think this!); but we must be persuaded that He does not prevent those that cause them, but overrules for good the crimes of His enemies.”

TERTULLIAN of Carthage c.155-225 Against Marcion Book II ch.5I

find, then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God’s image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by this constitution of his nature . . .

-you will find that when He sets before man good and evil, life and death, that the entire course of discipline is arranged in precepts by God’s calling men from sin, and threatening and exhorting them; and by this on no other ground than that man is free, with a will either for obedience or resistance.

. . . Since therefore, both the goodness and purpose of God are discovered in the gift to man of freedom in his will . . .”

NOVATIAN of Rome c.200-258. On the Trinity ch 1

“He also placed man at the head of the world, and man, too, made in the image of God, to whom He imparted mind, and reason, and foresight, that he might imitate God; and although the first elements of his body were earthly, yet the substance was inspired by a heavenly and divine breathing. And when He had given him all things for his service, He willed that he alone should be free. And lest, again, and unbounded freedom should fall into peril, He laid down a command, in which man was taught that there was no evil in the fruit of the tree; but he was forewarned that evil would arise if perchance he should exercise his freewill in contempt of the law that was given.”

ORIGEN c.185-254. De Principiis Preface

“Now it ought to be known that the holy apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, delivered themselves with the utmost clearness on certain points which they believed to be necessary to everyone . . . This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the church that every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition.”

De principiis Bk 3 ch. 1

“There are, indeed, innumerable passages in the Scriptures which establish with exceeding clearness the existence of freedom of will.”

METHODIUS of Olympus c.260-martyred 311. The Banquet of the Ten Virgins xvi

“Now those who decide that man is not possessed of free-will, and affirm that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate . . . are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils.”

Concerning Free-will

“I say that man was made with free-will, not as if there were already existing some evil, which he had the power of choosing if he wished . . . but that the power of obeying and disobeying God is the only cause.”

ARCHELAUS

The Disputation with Manes

“For all creatures that God made, He made very good, and He gave to every individual the sense of free-will in accordance with which standard He also instituted the law of judgment. To sin is ours, and that we sin not is God’s gift, as our will is constituted to choose either to sin or not to sin.”

ARNOBIUS of Sicca c.253-327

Against the Heathen: 64

“I reply: does not He free all alike who invites all alike? Or does He thrust back or repel any one from the kindness of the Supreme who gives to all alike the power of coming to Him? To all, He says, the fountain of life is open, and no one is hindered or kept back from drinking . . . “

65

“Nay, my opponent says, if God is powerful, merciful, willing to save us, let Him change our dispositions, and compel us to trust in His promises. This then, is violence, not kindness nor the bounty of the Supreme God, but a childish and vain strife in seeking to get the mastery. For what is so unjust as to force men who are reluctant and unworthy, to reverse their inclinations; to impress forcibly on their minds what they are unwilling to receive, and shrink from . . .”

CYRIL of Jerusalem c. 312-386

Lecture IV

18: “Know also that thou hast a soul self governed, the noblest work of God, made after the image of its Creator, immortal because of God that gives it immortality, a living being rational, imperishable, because of Him that bestowed these gifts: having free power to do what it willeth.”

20: “There is not a class of souls sinning by nature and a class of souls practising righteousness by nature; but both act from choice, the substance of their souls being of one kind only and alike in all.”

21: “The soul is self-governed: and though the Devil can suggest, he has not the power to compel against the will. He pictures to thee the thought of fornication: if thou wilt, thou rejectest. For if thou wert a fornicator of necessity then for what cause did God prepare hell? If thou wert a doer of righteousness by nature and not by will, wherefore did God prepare crowns of ineffable glory? The sheep is gentle, but never was it crowned for its gentleness; since its gentle quality belongs to it not from choice but by nature.”

GREGORY of Nyssa c.335-395. On Virginity (368/3G8) ch. XII

“Being the image and the likeness . . . of the Power which rules all things, man kept also in the matter of a free-will this likeness to Him whose will is over all.”

JEROME c.347-420. Letters CXXXIII

“It is in vain that you misrepresent me and try to convince the ignorant that I condemn free-will. Let him who condemns it be himself condemned. We have been created endowed with free-will; still it is not this which distinguishes us from the brutes. For human free-will, as I said, depends upon the help of God and needs His aid moment by moment, a thing which you and yours do not choose to admit. Your position is that once a man has free-will he no longer needs the help of God. It is true that freedom of the will brings with it freedom of decision. Still man does not act immediately on his free-will but requires God’s aid who Himself needs no aid.”

Against the Pelagians Book III, 10

“But when we are concerned with grace and mercy, free-will is in part void; in part, I say, for so much depends upon it, that we wish and desire, and give assent to the course we choose. But it depends on God whether we have the power in His strength and with His help to perform what we desire, and to bring to effect our toil and effort.”

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 347-407. On Hebrews, Homily 12

“All is in God’s power, but so that our free-will is not lost . . . It depends therefore on us and on Him. We must first choose the good, and then He adds what belongs to Him. He does not precede our willing, that our free-will may not suffer. But when we have chosen, then He affords us much help . . . It is ours to choose beforehand and to will, but God’s to perfect and bring to the end.”

From a recent Bible Study I taught:

How does this video contrast with Matthew chapter 6? discuss

Interview between Mark Driscoll and rapper lecrae. Very interesting.

While remodeling our house, my wife found an old-school cd by Russ Taff.  I put it on and relived some memories.  The song Winds of Change struck me with how much this song is about ME.  Check it out.

Well, I’ve seen my chances come and go
And come back round again
But everytime they took me by surprise

There was a day I used to want
the things I did not have
But it’s never better on the other side.

Well, I’ve never gone so far that I’ve
forgotten my way home
The best things always bring you back again
over and over

(chorus)
The Hands of Time
Go Round and Round
They don’t slow down when you lose your way
At evry turn
The things you learn
You wear them proud like you wear your name
And as you go
On Down that road
Don’t let the dust get in your eyes
It blows in the winds of change.
(end of chorus)

Hunger is no stranger
I’ve sat with him before
And everything I’ve done has not been good

As I’ve tried to make my stand
I’ve had to learn to fall
And maybe I’ve seen more than I should
But I’ve never gone so far that I’ve
Forgotten my way home
The best things always bring you back again
over and over

(sing chorus)

And I held on to my life
And I kept my dream alive
And the dream ain’t over
Over and over