Push the Play Button to listen to Episode 22of the Web Radio Today Podcast

WEB RADIO TODAY, The Faith and Fitness Podcast

Faith, Diet, Exercise, Attitude, Positive Imagery, Music and Research

The Faith Element of the Web Radio Today Disease Fighting and Fitness Model is featured on this episode.  In addition Skip talks about the importace of foregivenss.

Scripture Quoted : 1 Corinthians 6:19, Matthew 26: Versus 38 & 42

TRANSCRIPT

Skip Orem: (00:19)

Hey, everybody I’m Skip Orem, and from Nashville this is the Web Radio Today Podcast, actually, to be more specific, I’m doing the podcast from my Skip’s voiceover studio here in the sleepy little Nashville suburban town of Nolensville, Tennessee. Nolensville it’s not really so little anymore. The Nashville area is growing so fast, over a hundred people a day, moving to this area. And of course, some of those folks decide to make their homes right here in the beautiful town of Nolensville. It’s also nice to be back up here in my studio today, the past couple of podcasts, we’ve had some technical issues up here. And so the last couple of episodes I’ve had to do the podcast downstairs, and we had to contend with some outside noises, but we’re up here in the soundproof studio today, so you won’t be bothered by my neighbors leaf blower or anybody cutting their grass or any air planes flying over.
We’re good to go up here for episode number 22 of the Web Radio Today Podcast.

Skip Orem: (01:38)

And thank you so much, everybody for punching up your favorite faith and fitness podcast today. And I’m pretty sure that you’re going to enjoy today’s episode. I’m going to focus on the faith element of the Web Radio Today disease fighting and fitness model investigating the connection between faith and fitness. I also have some good news. We have finally been able to speed up the site webradiotoday.com. It’s a big full website and it was running somewhat sluggish. I know I got some emails complaining about how slow it was to change pages on the website.

Skip Orem: (02:25)   
However, I’ve been able to correct all of that, and it should be significantly easier now for you to know, Navigate through webradiotoday.com. There’s also a Web Radio Today, Facebook page, but I find it difficult on Facebook anyways, with a Facebook page to do all the things information wise on a Facebook page that can very easily be done on a webPage at webradiotoday.com. So I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to keep our Facebook page active. I want you though to think about webradiotoday.com as your complimentary information source to the Web Radio Today Podcast. All of The Web Radio Today Podcast episodes are there as well as full transcripts of each podcast.

Skip Orem: (03:24)

That website enables you to access all things Web Radio Today at your convenience. Most of the things that I talk about on the podcast, they’re further enhanced by links to additional more detailed information in the show notes for each episode at webradiotoday.com. I hope that you’ll visit webradiotoday.com often. And then speaking of Facebook, I need to confess to you all that my 40 day Facebook fast. Well, it never really got started. It was such a good idea. Stay away from Facebook for 40 days. Problem was, I didn’t really think about the timing. Football season is getting underway, and I just love talking with my friends on Facebook during football season. Now I’m not looking forward to all of the election drama that continues to show up in my Facebook feed.

Skip Orem: (04:27)

For sure I’m going to vote, and I do research and I study the candidates, the issues, but election arguments among my friends, they just wear me out. Especially when people get so angry about things. Anger is not good for your health. And I try to avoid it as much as I can, especially things that trigger anger. I try real hard to avoid those things. All of us we’re working so hard to keep our immune system healthy. Those cells in the immune system there, well, what they are, they’re our personal disease fighting army. They need to be kept healthy and in a good disease fighting shape and anger tends to weaken the immune system. You and I were going to be talking a whole lot more about our immune system on next week’s episode, but on today’s episode, the faith and fitness connection, and also how forgiveness can help keep us healthy.

Skip Orem: (05:35 )

Right now though, it’s time for a Web Radio Today mini workout. And then after this many workout, we’ll investigate further. The connection between faith and fitness. Let’s everybody get ready now for a Web Radio Today, many workout, you and I moving and burning calories for the next three minutes. Time to get up if you can. Run, walk, dance, do jumping jacks, spin, row, cycle, jump rope, whatever you want to do to get your body moving for a few minutes, get your heart rate up, burn a few calories. And if you can’t get up right now, that’s not a problem. Just move whatever parts of your body you safely can. Out of the Chicago area, my friends Verona Red, providing the soundtrack for today’s Web Radio Today mini workout, no way home

 Skip Orem: (09:11) 

Time to slow down and move a little slower now, as you cool down after the many workout.

Skip Orem: (09:21)

Regular Web Radio Today listeners know that the Web Radio Today disease fighting and fitness model has seven elements, faith, diet, exercise, attitude, positive imagery, music, and research.

Skip Orem: (09:37)

And we’ve spent some time together over the past few weeks, thinking about how each of these seven elements work to keep us healthy and to fight off disease. And I’ll continue to do that as we continue on through this first season of the Web Radio Today Podcast. And I think that most of you understand the importance of the first, and the foremost of our disease fighting and fitness elements. And that element is faith, because without faith, this entire disease fighting and fitness strategy, it’s not going to work, but you know what, everybody, if I’m totally honest, I’ve received a couple of emails, challenging me on the necessity of the faith element. And we’ve lost a few listeners specifically because of the religious in nature of the Web Radio Today Podcast. That’s okay though, because everybody does have the freedom to make that choice.

Skip Orem: (10:49)

If you’ve listened to Web Radio Today, since the beginning, you know that at the end of last year, while I was in fact kind of a fitness nut, I was also what I call a lapsed or backsliding Christian.

Skip Orem: (11:11 )

I never actually lost my belief in Jesus, but I absolutely did not practice my Christian faith. That was until advanced stage prostate cancer paid me a visit and set up shop getting ready to take me out. And then the miracle happened. What came to destroy me, it brought me back to God.

Skip Orem: (11:41)

My level of physical fitness played a strong part in me beating prostate cancer. But I want you to know this, everybody, it was my faith that saved me. For an old guy. I was very physically fit at the time, but that did not stop me from getting cancer. My high level of physical fitness did, however, allow me to have the risky procedures necessary to get rid of this disease.

Skip Orem: (12:13)

But everybody it was my faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, along with a world-class medical team that saved me. And what joy, what comfort it was to be living under sort of a death sentence, and yet be able to lay down each night to go to sleep. Knowing that everything was in God’s hands,

Skip Orem: (12:41)

attitude is important in fighting disease. It’s one of the elements and the Web Radio Today, disease fighting and fitness model.

Skip Orem: (12:52)

I firmly believe this, and I want you to believe it too, everybody. Faith nourishes attitude, faith powers, a positive attitude so that when cancer came into my life, came to destroy me, it brought me back to God.   Everything. It’s in God’s hands, everybody, to stay fit, to stay healthy, to be able to fight off diseases, to be able to get rid of diseases, if they come and visit you, come to take you out, whatever plan you put together to combat all of that needs to include a strong faith in God. It needs to have God’s help.

Skip Orem: (13:53)

Many of you will, of course agree with me that faith and healthy living go together, sort of naturally each of those elements, providing support for the other. The faith and fitness connection, what it does is it helps to bring meaning to our fitness efforts. And I know practicing good physical fitness. I know it will strengthen your faith and think about this, our faith, it helps us to see our health and our fitness in a much broader context. Most of us who do aerobic fitness, running, walking, rowing, cycling, especially when it’s done outside, people who do that will tell you how those fitness efforts, while they’re doing them, allow you to connect with nature, to free your mind. And then to kind of put you in a, what I call a more spiritual place. I often talk with God while I’m running.

Skip Orem: (14:56)

In those instances, because I’m out there all alone, kind of in the groove, I feel more separate from the world and more alone with God. Some of the tenants of our faith, patience, diligence, perseverance, self denial. Well aren’t they some of the same things we need to do to take care of our bodies, and stay physically fit. We need patience because even as we work to get our bodies into shape, it takes more time, and often we don’t see the results right away. Don’t see the immediate gains or improvements that we might want. As with our faith, we need to be patient, as we practice fitness and disease fighting to get and stay physically fit. We need to be diligent, stay on that diet, make sure that we exercise daily. And like we have to persevere in our faith. We need to persevere in our attempts to fight off disease and to get, and to stay physically fit. Staying free of disease, trying to get cured of disease, staying physically fit well, just like our faith that involves self-denial right?

Skip Orem: (16:17)

I want to ask you everybody to make sure that you practice your faith and use it to keep yourself physically fit and healthy. The Bible tells us in first Corinthians six, 19, that, well it tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy spirit. Those temples must be cared for. Fighting disease and getting fit, there is no conflict there are spiritual goals and our fitness goals, they enhance each other. And that everybody is why faith is the first and most important elements of the Web Radio Today disease fighting and fitness strategy.

Skip Orem: (17:13)

Web Radio Today listeners like me and you we’re older folks. Were part of the baby boom generation, and we’re still going strong living and loving life in our sixties and seventies and beyond. And I pray that each one of you have started to incorporate all seven elements of the Web Radio Today disease finding a fitness model into your life where we’re so vulnerable at our age, not only to the problems of old age, but most importantly, we’re at the age where diseases start to attack us, try to take us out.

Skip Orem: (17:50)

Heart disease, diabetes, just a multitude of bone and skeletal problems, and of course cancer. If you can put into practice every day, the seven elements of the Web Radio Today disease fighting and fitness model, you will be able to help your body and your mind fight off or limit the effects, even defeat some of these diseases. Faith, diet, exercise, positive attitude, positive imagery, music, and research, use them every day as your weapons against disease, and as your template for living a full of fun and an active life. More to come on today’s episode. But I want to talk with you about something special that I’m going to be doing on next week’s episode. And I’ll do that right after our featured song. The song is up tempo, so you can actually get up and start moving a little bit if you want. Summer’s gone. Autumn is here. And like every day, today is a beautiful day.

Skip Orem: (22:52)

I have a special episode plan for next week. Everybody, you know on Web Radio Today, we have those seven fitness elements working together to fight off disease, keep us healthy. Next week, though, a little something different. I’m going to focus next week’s Web Radio Today episode on fighting disease at a more micro level. Look at this scenario. Your doctor tells you that you have cancer. You have diabetes, you have heart disease. What’s the action plan? What needs to happen when you hear those dreaded words, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance. You’re going to experience all of that. However, you can’t let that get in the way of preparing to go into battle, because time is of the essence. So next week, episode 23 of the Web Radio Today Podcast, we’re going to focus on that battle plan. I think it will be one of our most important episodes and it will be available on Friday, October 2nd.

Skip Orem: (23:56)
And then also on that episode, a special positive imagery session designed to help you as you battle a disease that has invaded your body.

Skip Orem: (24:10)

As part of the faith element of the Web Radio Today, disease fighting and fitness model, I want to spend some time near the end of each episode, encouraging all of our listeners to make sure that Jesus is part of their lives. You all know that I had drifted away from Christ as the center of my life, and then the cancer that came to destroy me, it brought me back home to Jesus

Skip Orem: (25:58)

Non believers who hear that my battle with cancer turned me back to Jesus, they think it’s sort of cliche. You don’t need Jesus. He wasn’t in your life that much, but now when you really need him, you want him back.

Skip Orem: (25:20)

But you know what? I thank my cancer for bringing me back to God.

Skip Orem: (25:41)

I grew up a Christian and in the fundamentalist church that I grew up in my seven or eight years of Sunday school, Sunday morning and Sunday evening sermons, Wednesday night Bible meetings, summer church camps. I sometimes think that that was the equivalent of a divinity school education. I’d memorize parts of the Bible. This stuff had been drilled into me and I believed it. But you know what? For a major portion of my life, I drifted away from all of that. I was more focused on other things than my relationship with Jesus. I didn’t live a Christian life. So this cancer comes along to take me out and I immediately turned to Jesus for help. There are no atheists in foxholes, someone, me, with all that training and understanding of who Jesus was. I walked away from him and turned back to him. I was very fortunate that I had all of that religious training when I was young, because of that training and understanding of the Bible, I knew that Jesus would not hold a grudge and he would immediately accept me back.

Skip Orem: (26:57)

I knew that I would be, and I was forgiven and welcomed back into his arms

Skip Orem: (27:12)

because of the forgiveness that I’ve been given. I get a little concerned when people tell me, they say, “I’ve done so many bad things. I’ve led such a terrible life. I’ve committed sins that can never be forgiven.” I’ve had to control my voice when I respond. None of that matters. Jesus accepts you as you are. It doesn’t matter what terrible things you may have done, what terrible thoughts you might’ve had.

Skip Orem: (27:45)

It doesn’t matter that you may have rejected Jesus in the past. It doesn’t matter that you may have ridiculed people pull in the past for their belief in Jesus. None of that matters. And you want to know why? Because Jesus suffered God’s wrath for you. He did that for you. Paraded through town, forced to carry his own cross, wearing that crown of thorns people jeering at him and then being nailed to that cross to hang there and die in shame. Jesus knew he had to do that. He knew how awful that was going to be all of the pain that he was going to be made to feel. And at the time of the crucifixion, he was in a human body. So he was going to feel every nail go in, the pain of dying there, hanging on a cross, people making fun of him. He knew that, he knew it in advance and yeah, he was concerned and he was worried about it. Even asked God not to do it.

Skip Orem: (28:49)

There in the garden. Matthew 26, verse 39. He asked God, “Father, if it’s possible, may this cup be taken away from me? Yet, not as I will, but as you will.” In other words, father, could you not do this please? But if you must understand, and I will submit. As he says in verse 42, knowing everything in advance that was going to be done to him, “Father, if it’s not possible for this cup to be taken away, unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

Skip Orem: (29:35)

Why did he have to do that? Why did God lay all of his wrath on his son? It was an amazing plan, if you think about it and an amazing sacrifice, not only for Jesus, that sacrifice wasn’t only for Jesus, but for God too, we don’t know this for sure. But I think when that darkness occurred, while Jesus was hanging there, dying on the cross, we know as a fact that the darkness occurred.

Skip Orem: (30:06)

But I wonder if perhaps the reason for the darkness was that God could not bear to look at what he had done to his son covered with all of our sins past, present, and future all of the sins of the world, dying there, that terrible death on the cross, what was happening there, Jesus was taking the punishment for all of our sins. And that includes you and me, everybody, because of what he went through there on the cross, we’ve been forgiven. We’ve been offered eternal life if we only believe.

Skip Orem: (30:57)

Please, if you haven’t done so already take advantage of what Jesus did for you on that cross and give your life to him. Okay, so you don’t know how to go about giving your life to Jesus. You’re not sure how to turn your life over to him? How to ask him for forgiveness, which he will give you, if you only ask.

Skip Orem: (31:23)

You’re confused about how to get all that started. Well, there’s not a whole lot of time left, so you need to get started right away, walk into any church, just walk right into the door. Most of them are open all day. Any door that’s open, go ahead and walk in. Someone will be there. Then the first person that you run into there tell them you’re looking for some help because you want to find Jesus. You want to learn more about giving your life to Jesus.

Skip Orem: (32:02)

I promise you this, everybody, their eyes will brighten. They’ll probably smile at you. It will become a moment that neither one of you will ever forget, and they’ll help you find Jesus. Our future is not guaranteed and we don’t know how much time we have left.

Skip Orem: (32:23)

Don’t lose eternal life because you were too timid to act. Don’t be deprived of forgiveness and love because the devil’s telling you to take some time and, and think about all this before you do anything because you can’t be sure if you have the time, come to Jesus now, just as you are.

Skip Orem: (33:03)

Like the verse in the song says, just as I am tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt fighting’s and fears within and without, oh, lamb of God. I come. I come.

 Skip Orem: (33:45)

I’ll talk with you again next week for the Web Radio Today Podcast, I’m Skip Orem. Goodbye, everybody.