Sin and Visceral Fat

Alright, I know you must be thinking that this title is totally off, but believe it or not I see a relationship between these two things.

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For those who may not be familiar, visceral fat is the fat that forms around the liver, heart, and intestines, underneath the subcutaneous fat (the fat directly under the skin). The danger of visceral fat is that it isn’t as obvious, yet it increases the risk of chronic diseases, inflammation, insulin resistance, hormonal imbalances, and can cause premature death. 

(Of course, if you believe in Predestination, then there isn’t any such thing as premature death, right?)

So, visceral fat isn’t just fat, it is a silent and invisible killer.

Starting to see where I am going with this?

Sin is not always so obvious as we would like it to be, but it is a killer, none the less.

Oh, yeah, sure, you know when you have killed someone, or committed adultery, or cursed out a parent, or any other of the many sins outlined in the Torah. Those are easy to spot.

But what about when your religion tells you it is OK to eat pork, or to observe Sunday as the Sabbath Day, then after church go out to a restaurant for a nice brunch?

Or what about when you reject God’s Holy Days to celebrate man-made, non-biblical holidays because you have been told that is worshipping God?

Or maybe you don’t know you have sinned simply because we have a sinful nature, and doing what feels right is probably not right in God’s eyes; and, not being intimately familiar with the Bible, you aren’t aware of what you are doing.

In the end, though, just like when you tell the cop who stopped you for an illegal turn that you weren’t aware it was not allowed, God will give you the same reply when you say you didn’t know it was a sin:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The way to get rid of visceral fat is to eat the right foods, get regular exercise, and reduce stress (stress causes the release of a hormone called Cortisol, which promotes fat storage, especially visceral fat).

Remarkably enough, that is also the way to reduce sin (using a spiritual equivalent):

Eat the right foods means to take into yourself only that which is healthy, meaning reject false doctrine and any tenets or ceremonies that are not biblical;

Get regular exercise means to read the Bible every day, strengthening your spiritual muscle and maturity; and

Reduce stress by increasing your faithful trusting in God to keep you safe, even when you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

You may be wondering how to increase faith, and the answer (at least, for me) is to recall all the times you were nearly hit by another car, or when you really needed to get somewhere and all the lights were green, or when you lost something valuable and a stranger returned it to you intact. Every time something in your life happened that you thought would end up terribly, but you came out okay, that was God protecting you. When you think about how many times that has happened, even (as with me) way before you became a Believer, that is how you strengthen your faith- by remembering and believing that all those times, it was God interceding on your behalf.

And one other thing- because visceral fat is nearly invisible, you have to know it is there by measuring yourself. The rule for visceral fat is your waist should be half the number of inches of your height, so if you are 5’10’, that is 70 inches, your waist (above your bellybutton) should measure 35 inches. Any more than that, you’ve got visceral fat!

As for your spiritual visceral fat, read the Torah; that is the only place where God, himself, tells us directly how he wants us to live, and see how close you come to God’s definition of what the ideal measurement should be.

For the record- Yeshua was skinny as a rail!

I know this message feels more like an infomercial than a spiritual encouragement, but I have been working on my visceral fat (the physical kind) recently, and it occurred to me how invisible fat and unrecognized sin are the same: both are dangerous to your health.

We all need to work at being healthier than we are, both physically and spiritually, and it has to be a lifetime commitment.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

PS: Hey, can I ask you to do me a favor? Will you please make any sort of comment on this and all of my messages in the future? Even just a Thumbs Up emoji helps these messages get more exposure on the Internet. Todah Rabah!