Salt & Water: Barbara O’Neill (Full Transcript)

So remember that with your body: take it little by little by little by little. It is the best way to take it.

The Role of Sodium in Glucose Transport

So we’re making our gastrointestinal tract a villi, and on the villi is a receptor site, and that receptor site is to take the glucose through and into the blood. So on this villi, we’ve got blood capillaries that go all the way through. Now in that receptor site is a carrier, and this carrier is designed to take the glucose through to the blood, but the carrier will not accept the glucose unless it comes with a molecule of sodium.

I read this in my Anatomy and Physiology book. In the Anatomy and Physiology book, I memorized the sentence so I could give it to you from the horse’s mouth: “Sodium is the main transport system of glucose across the brush border wall and into the blood.” And yet what are we told? Don’t eat salt. Well, I agree with the table salt because it causes this imbalance of minerals in and out of the cell, absolutely. And did you know that sodium chloride is so strong it can kill the taste buds? Have you seen people that eat table salt? They put it on everything, and they put it on before they’ve even tasted it. Well, no wonder their taste buds are dying.

Whereas Celtic salt, with all of its minerals, it enhances the flavor of the food. Now the red lentils we had this morning, a few people have said, “What’s in this?” I’ve even served it at my house at breakfast, and people have said, “Is there chicken in this?” And I know why they say that: it’s because it’s so flavorsome. Well, it has a little olive oil, some herbs (nice if you can get fresh or Italian herbs), some Celtic salt, and a bit of turmeric. That’s it. I rinse it very well; it must be rinsed well first, and I do that just before it’s fully cooked, and yet as you can see, it’s delicious. See, I’m not interested in cooking up onions and garlic, and much as I love that in my lentils, I’ll do that at lunchtime. But in the morning, I’ve got hills to run up and down, creeks to jump in. I’m not interested in being in the kitchen for a long time, and that’s a very quick dish to make.

The Importance of Minerals and Vitamins

So sodium not only is required to get the glucose into the blood, it’s also required to get the water into the cell. So it’s sodium. It’s the third most vital element needed for life, and you can get that information on the four vitals in any anatomy and physiology book, chemistry book, biology book. I’m just giving you the facts here. So as you can see, water is very important, but so is the salt, and again, the potassium is found in all your fresh fruits and vegetables.

Calcium cannot get into the cell by itself; it needs vitamin D. When vitamin D is present, the calcium is pulled inside the cell, and remember I showed you the other day that calcium is called the king because when it gets into the cell, all the other minerals piggyback on the back of calcium.

Energy Production in Cells

Something else happens, I’d like to go back to this for a moment. When the magnesium is put on the tongue and you have the glass of water or half a glass a little bit later the other half glass, that magnesium pulls the water inside the cell. In the bilayered membrane that’s around every cell, there’s a little motor, and when the water’s pulled through the membrane and into the cell, it causes that little motor to start spinning, and the spinning of that motor gives us a unit of energy. So when you’re feeling a little tired or maybe a little bit peckish mid-morning, have the salt and have the water, and you’ll get a little bit of a pick-up.

So when everyone’s going outside to have their cigarette or their cup of coffee, you have your crystal of salt, your glass of water. Absolutely, if you’re working in an office, go outside and find a tree. Remember what the trees are giving off? Life-giving oxygen. Breathe deeply from your abdominal muscle, and that blast of oxygen, remember what the oxygen does at the cellular level: oxygen will give you 18 times more energy.

I’ve looked at the inside of the workings of the cell a few times, and the way I explain it, it looks like there’s one energy cycle per cell, but it is not true. So what I’ve drawn for you here is a whole lot of little energy cycles. In fact, in the muscle cell, you can have a hundred energy cycles to a muscle cell. I can hardly get my mind around that, and that’s why the saying that you will receive more energy than you expend on your morning walk, because each one of those little energy cycles will give 18 times more energy if enough oxygen is going into your body.

Glucose, Insulin, and Insulin Resistance

Glucose, it can’t get into the cell by itself; it has to have insulin. Insulin’s the key that unlocks the door to let the glucose into the cell. And what happens with many people before diabetes develops, insulin resistance develops. You’ve heard of insulin resistance, and when insulin resistance develops, the cell’s resisting insulin, so the glucose can’t get into the cell, so the glucose stays in the blood, and the brain says to the pancreas, “More insulin, more insulin!” But the problem’s not more insulin; the problem is there’s insulin resistance at the cellular level.

So what causes the insulin resistance is the high carbohydrate, high sugar diet. The cell gets to the point where it says, “We’ve got enough, sick of the sight of you.” So how to recover from insulin resistance is to get the glucose, those carbohydrates right down, get the fiber up, the good proteins, and the healthy fats. That’s the best way to recover from insulin resistance.

The Dangers of Dehydration and Poor Nutrition

But you just imagine for a moment, and this is happening in America a lot today: people are not drinking enough water, they’re not having the whole salt, and they’re definitely not having many greens, which is where your magnesium is, so the little bit of water they’re having is not getting inside the cell.

They don’t go out in the sunshine because they’re scared of getting skin cancer, so they’re not getting their vitamin D, so the calcium can’t get in and the minerals can’t get in. And they’re trying to lose weight, so they’ve listened to a lot of the media hype that you’ve got to stop the fat because fat will make you fat, so they’re on a high carbohydrate diet. Remember what fat will do? It will give you satisfaction or a satiation, a fulfilling. But if you’re not having any fat, you just eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. The whole pack of cookies goes, the whole chips go. There’s almost not a sign in your body that says “enough.” It’s the fiber, protein, and the good fats that will give you that sign.

So they’re on a high carbohydrate diet, thinking that if they go fat-free, they’ll lose weight. And can you see what’s happening? The water can’t get in, the minerals can’t get in, the glucose can’t get in, and the body says, “What are we going to do?” Because remember, this is the CBD of the human body. What are we going to do? And the body says, “We’ve got one last thing up our sleeve: we’ll just force it into the cell.” That’s high blood pressure.

So high blood pressure can be a result of dehydration, it can be a result of mineral deficiency, magnesium deficiency, it can be a result of vitamin D deficiency, it can be a result of a high carbohydrate, high sugar diet, it can be a result of inactivity. So there’s a whole lot of things that can come together to contribute to high blood pressure. That’s why the detective hat has to be put on, to find out why these things are so.

And in some cases, it’ll be a bit of this one, in some cases a bit of that one, in some cases other things. And you saw from the first lecture (seems a long time ago, doesn’t it, back to Monday), we looked at how genetics loads the gun, but it is lifestyle that pulls the trigger. So the cell and understanding the workings of the cell is paramount to understanding how these things affect the body.

The Power of Water: Dr. Batman Geheldage’s Research

We have a book in our library, and I know we have it in the library here. It’s by an Iranian doctor called Dr. Batmanghelidj, I think that’s how you pronounce it. It’s called “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water.” The second title to his book is “You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty.” The third title to his book is “Don’t Treat Thirst with Medications.”

His story is fascinating. I think it was in about the 70s or 80s, he was a political prisoner, and because he was a doctor, everyone came to him when they had problems, and all he had was water. So no matter what the problem was, he’d get them to drink a glass of water. He’d come and see them 15 minutes later; he’d give them another glass of water. So usually in half an hour, they had three glasses of water, and he was just shocked at how the headaches had gone, the migraines had eased, the stomach ulcer pain had relieved, the asthma attack relieved. He only gave them water because he had nothing else.

He just wanted to make, I guess, a show that he was doing something, and because he was a doctor, they just drank their water. So he began to document what he was finding because it surprised him. He did not realize, he did not expect the water to have that much of an effect. I can’t remember the period of time, but eventually, the government changed and he was freed. And he said, “Look, do you mind if I stay a bit longer?”

Dr. Batmanghelidj’s Research on Water

I’m in the middle of this fascinating research, and he has presented his findings at medical conferences. He’s presented his findings in medical journals, but it’s not a very popular subject because you can’t make much money out of water. Now you’ll understand why the second title of his book is “You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty” and “Don’t Treat Thirst with Medications.” It was a fascinating book for me to read, and I’d like to take you inside and look at a few body functions and how they’re affected by dehydration.

Effects of Dehydration on the Body

Let’s begin at the mouth. Did you know that in a state of chronic dehydration, too much saliva is produced? Some people think a dry mouth is a sign of dehydration. It is, and too much saliva can be a sign of dehydration. You see, when not enough water is going into the body – and how much water should go in? Let’s do an assessment of that.

So our kidneys, to know how much water should go in, we need to look at how much is coming out. In our kidneys, we urinate at 1.5 litre loss. Now a litre is the same as a quart, so I’m probably best, because I’m speaking to an American audience, to say quart loss – 1.5 quart loss. Out of the skin, it can be 0.5 of a quart loss, out of the colon 0.3 of a quart loss, and out of the lungs, it’s about 0.2 of a quart loss.

So that equals 2.5 quart loss every day. So 2 quarts is 8 cups, so that’s 10 glasses, 8-ounce glasses of water a day is lost out of the body, and we have no reserve tank on the back, do we? The only water that’s going in is the water we take in. So we should be drinking at least 2 quarts a day, at least more if possible.

Now at the moment, because you’re having a steam sauna every day, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got a 0.8 of a quart loss coming out of your skin because you perspire profusely. The other half can come in your fruits and your vegetables, maybe your herb teas, vegetable juice through the day. So that’s how much water we need, and Dr. Batmanghelidj, he showed that the first place that we feel that water loss, if we’re not replacing the water, the body goes into a form of drought management and it releases a hormone to manage this drought management. It’s called histamine.

And if someone has an allergic response to something, what are they given? Antihistamines. You know the best antihistamine is just water. So the first place that water is taken from to try and maintain full blood volume in the veins and arteries is the lining of the stomach.

Dehydration and Stomach Ulcers

We have a thick mucosal wall lining the stomach, and so now we’ve got a very thin mucosal wall. Now in that mucosal wall, there’s sodium bicarbonate, and the sodium bicarbonate is in the mucosal wall to neutralize any stomach acid that might try and get through and basically protect against stomach ulcers. So what is a stomach ulcer? It’s basically a breakdown of the tissues.

Now let me give you a scenario here. It was probably about maybe 20 years ago, a couple of Australian doctors in Western Australia discovered that Helicobacter pylori caused stomach ulcers. You’ve heard of that theory? They even put Helicobacter pylori bacteria into some people’s stomachs and got stomach ulcers.

So we had a man do our program from South Africa, and he and his wife came. He was not interested in being at our retreat, but his wife had paid the full amount, so he came reluctantly. When I’m talking to him, he’s about 57, he did not want to answer my questions. He answered them abruptly and shortly. He wasn’t annoyed at me. I know he was annoyed at his wife that he was even there. I said to him, “Do you drink water?” “Yep, two litres a day.”

So I just moved on from that. I didn’t ask any more questions. I said, “Are you on any medication?” He said, “Yes, I’m on a different antibiotic every month to kill the Helicobacter pylori in my stomach because I have had stomach problems for 25 years. I’ve been all over the world.” So the latest thing he was trying was antibiotics because they found he had Helicobacter in his stomach. I said, “Oh, how long has he been on this program?” He said, “Four months.”

So he’s had four doses of Helicobacter pylori and guess what? It’s still there, and he’s still got the stomach pain. I said, “Are you interested in trying an alternative to your medication?” He said, “No, I’m very happy with my medication. Thank you very much.” And I always give everyone respect. I respect everyone’s choices. Isn’t that our God-given right? Absolutely. I just said, “Ah,” and I left it there.

A Change of Heart and Healing

Now after the first lecture where I talked about the body’s ability to heal itself so that we have a problem, we should be looking at how the body heals and work with it. He and his wife, and she was on the medication too, they came straight up to me. He said, “That makes more sense than anything I’ve ever heard. I’m willing to do what you suggest.” I said to him, “I have no authority over your medication. But I said, if it was me, I would cease it because it hasn’t worked so far and I would try the herbs that I suggest.”

He said, “I’m willing.” So what I did was I gave him a herb called Cyprian, which coats and soothes the lining of the gut. He did our basic program, two days on juices, and we encouraged people, of course, to drink water between every juice. At the end of the week, I had a very happy man in front of me. He was eager to tell me something. I said, “Yes.” He said, “I’ve had no stomach pain for two days, first time in 25 years.” I said, “That’s good news.”

And he said, “And I’ve worked out the problem.” To me, that was even better news because who’s the doctor? We are, we are. I said, “What was the problem?” He said, “I was drinking nothing between meals, and I was drinking almost a whole liter of water with every meal.”

Understanding the Stomach’s Healing Process

So I want to show you what was happening in his gut. So what was happening in his gut, he’s drinking nothing between meals, which means the lining to his gut is very thin, which means the hydrochloric acid is breaking down the tissues. And remember, the bacteria is an opportunist organism.

And so what happened is the body started to, its own microorganisms changed role and came to the cleanup team, remember the garbage collectors, and they started to clean up the dead tissue and their name was called Helicobacter pylori. See why you have to ask why are they there? No wonder they find Helicobacter pylori in every case of stomach ulcer. They’re there to clean up the mess.

Now, as God would have it, when we smell food and we start to chew food, hydrochloric acid is released and hydrochloric acid connects with pepsinogen to release pepsin, which breaks down protein, but hydrochloric acid does something else. It’s antifungal, antibacterial. And so it has the ability to wipe out these guys. And just as hydrochloric acid is considering going down and wiping these guys out, he has a big glass of water.

And what does water do to hydrochloric acid? It just dilutes it. So Helicobacter pylori is chomping away at the dead tissue and it goes, “Whew, that was close,” chomp, chomp, chomp. What this man discovered is that he was drinking water at the wrong time.

Do you remember I said to you earlier, I said, “How much water do you drink a day?” And he said two liters. And because he was a little bit abrasive with all his answers, I decided not to push it anymore. So now he drank early in the morning. He stopped drinking half an hour before his meal. That half an hour before the meal immediately thickened that mucosal wall. The water he had the day before fed the hydrochloric acid that’s made in the liver.

The Healing Process

So let’s have a look at what’s happening now. Now being at the health retreat, he’s drinking water at the right time between meals. His mucosal wall is getting thick. And then when he eats his meal, hydrochloric acid, which is not being watered down anymore, comes down and wipes out Helicobacter pylori. What a wonderful process.

His body healed itself when given the right conditions. When someone comes to me with Helicobacter pylori, one of the first things I do is increase their hydrochloric acid. And if you increase the hydrochloric acid, remember what one of its roles is? Antibacterial, anti-yeast, anti-fungal.

Now I’m not criticizing the doctors that discovered that Helicobacter pylori causes stomach ulcers. It is there. It does play a role. But why is it there? Can you see that? And unfortunately, on the board that awards Nobel Prizes, there are representatives from the pharmaceutical companies. So we won’t go any further there. And I certainly am not saying people that get Nobel Prizes don’t deserve it. Absolutely they do, because of their great work. But I’m just presenting you the facts. I’m just giving you the basic anatomy and physiology.

So this man who’d had stomach pain for 25 years found relief by just drinking water at the right time, which allowed his body to heal itself.

Dr. Batman Geheldage’s Findings on Dehydration

Dr. Batmanghelidj, we’ll call him Dr. B, he found the first place that we lose water is the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. He also found that if you go down the gastrointestinal tract, you come to the pancreas. And the pancreas releases two hormones into the blood to help balance blood sugar levels. That’s your insulin and your glucagon. But if you’re dehydrated, those hormones aren’t being made as they should be. So people that are dehydrated, that can be a contributing factor to diabetes.

He also discovered that there are hormones released from the pancreas to finalize digestion. So there’s pancreatic lipase to finalize fat digestion. There’s pancreatic amylase, that’s what finalizes starch digestion. There’s trypsin and chymotrypsin that finalize protein digestion. Now they’re all made out of water. If you don’t have enough water, your digestion will be compromised. At every stage, water is needed for every body function.

So no wonder Dr. B entitled his book, when a person has a symptom of disease, he says it must be one of the body’s many cries for water. That’s the title of his book. Our brain cells shrink when they don’t have enough water. Headaches are common when we don’t have enough water. These thought patterns can develop when our brain cells don’t have enough water.

I can get my hand to go in and out like that without pain because around every joint there’s fluid and that fluid is synovial fluid and it is 99% water. In a state of dehydration, the body can take some water from there to maintain full blood volume in the major arteries and veins. And so if I have pain in there, maybe it’s called arthritis, but actually maybe it’s just a state of dehydration. Our eyeball moves around in water. So we need water at every single step.

The Importance of Water in the Lungs

Also our lungs. Now at the bottom of our lungs, I’ll draw you a small picture of our lungs so that you’ll understand this. So here’s our lungs here. That’s one lung. So your trachea splits and comes down and then it splits again into little bronchioles. That’s quite a process. And then at the end of every bronchiole, there’s looks like a little bunch of grapes, but they’re alveoli. So at the end of the bronchiole, you’ve got the alveoli. And this is where the gaseous exchange takes place.

The Role of Water in Lung Function

Over every alveoli, there’s a little blood capillary network. And it is in that blood capillary network where the oxygen is picked up from the alveoli and the blood drops the carbon dioxide and we breathe out. In every alveoli, there’s a minuscule droplet of water. Because of the surface tension of water, when you breathe out, that little alveoli collapses, which allows all the carbon dioxide, the majority of it, to be breathed out.

So that now when you breathe in, you can breathe in more oxygen. In a state of dehydration, that little droplet of water is not as it should be, which means that doesn’t totally collapse when you breathe out, which means you can’t get your full quota of oxygen. But what also happens, the body, to prevent the water loss, it can start constricting the little bronchioles so that we don’t lose water. And so one of the signs of dehydration can be constricted breathing.

The blood gets very thick in dehydration. Our blood needs to be nice and thin so the heart can pump it easily, so that the little filtering units in our kidneys can filter it with ease. So water is needed for every single body function.

A Case Study of Dehydration

I’m going to give you a story of a man that came to our retreat who had three main problems. He had chronic headaches, which he took a lot of painkillers for. He had a very congested chest, and also he had terrible lower back pain. Did you know that 75% of weight held in your lower back is held by water? The other percentage, of course, is taken with your ligaments, your muscles.

And so a state of dehydration, lower back pain is quite common. So that’s what this man had. And when I was consulting with him, I said to him, “How much water do you drink a day?” He said, “Oh, I don’t drink water.” I said, “You don’t drink water?” I said, “What do you drink?” He said, “Oh, Coca-Cola, coffee,” because he has a lot of painkillers. He was only 44. He was a well-built man, but at 44, his quality of life had gone.

So we encouraged him to start drinking more water. By the end of the week, the headache had gone. By the end of the week, the lower back pain had certainly eased, and his lungs were a little freer. I saw him five weeks later. He jumped out of the car with a big smile on his face and had a two-liter (you’d say two-quart) bottle of water. He said, “I’m drinking four liters a day.” He said, “In five weeks, I’ve had no headaches, no lower back pain,” and he said “my chest is almost clear.”

What was his problem? It was dehydration. How nice when that’s as simple as that. It’s not always that simple, but it’s nice when it is that simple.

The Importance of Water and Proper Hydration

So Dr. B’s book, “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water,” is an important book because he goes into every body function and shows how important it is for us to be drinking adequate water. One lady said to me, “I drink quite a lot of water in my cups of tea.” Sorry, that doesn’t do it because tea contains dehydrating agents.

Caffeine and tannin are both quite strong dehydrating agents, and if she puts a little teaspoon of sugar in that, there’s another dehydrating agent in there. We had a pathologist through our program, he said, “We’ve done studies on caffeine, and we have found that you need five cups of water to make up for the dehydrating agents in one cup of coffee.” Now that was a cup of coffee that also had sugar in it as well. So not only are people not drinking enough water, but they are also causing dehydration because of the drinks that they are having.

Again, we need to drink little by little by little. Much depends on your activity through the day. If you’re working out in the garden and perspiring a lot, if you’re having steam baths a lot, then definitely you need to drink more water. One of the signs that you’re drinking adequate water is that your urine is clear.

When your urine is clear, that’s a fairly good sign that you’re drinking enough water. Now at the moment, here at the retreat, you’re having B vitamins, and those B vitamins have an effect on your body to cause your urine to be fluorescent yellow. So don’t be surprised if this week your urine is fluorescent yellow. So you’ve just got to find out how to get it in.

Dehydration in the Elderly

And many people in aged care facilities, elderly people, they do not drink enough water. And it certainly is a contributing factor to the mental illness and the deterioration in brains we’re seeing. In Australia, there are 1,700 cases of Alzheimer’s being diagnosed every week. Now that’s a bit scary.

Did you know that God never meant our brain to deteriorate? And tomorrow we’re going to go to the brain, and tomorrow I’m going to show you how you can get brighter and smarter and wiser with age. Brains should not be deteriorating. Have you read of Alzheimer’s or dementia in the Bible? I certainly haven’t. And before the flood, you know, people were living to lower 700 and 800 years old. We’re getting people today who are showing signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s in their 40s and in their 50s, and this should not be. And it’s often not just one point, often it’s several points, but one is certainly dehydration.

A Case Study of Dementia and Dehydration

So I’ll give you a story to illustrate. We had a lady, came and did our program a few years ago now, it’s probably about six years ago now. She was 45, and she brought her mother who had dementia. So we always say if someone has Alzheimer’s or dementia, they will need to have a carer with them.

Because we’re not a hospital. We just teach you how to give your body the conditions for healing. When the mother first arrived, so the mother was probably early 70s, I went into the bedroom and she was just standing there looking out the window. And she looked at me, she didn’t seem to even know who I was or acknowledge me.

So I talked to the mother, well, I couldn’t say much to the mother, but I talked to the daughter and I found out she hadn’t drunk any water for two days. And because she had dementia, her daughter would ask her and she’d say, “Oh, yes, I’ve drunk lots of water,” but she actually wasn’t drinking any. And she hadn’t been to the bathroom for three days. I’m talking about her bowels.

So there are two things that we can fix pretty good. So we gave her herbs to get the bowels moving and we gave her, we just got her to drink little bits of water. See, a lot of elderly people are put off water because they don’t want to have an accident. But if you can explain to them, just have a mouthful at a time, that’s reachable.

Just have a mouthful at a time. If you have a mouthful of water every couple of minutes, you’d be surprised how much water you can get into the body in a day. So just have lots of little, little bits. Within 24 hours, this lady had no dementia. She was lucid. She was talking to people, sitting and dialoguing. And the daughter looked at her and she hadn’t seen her mother like this for a long time.

You see, I understand what it’s like in an aged care facility because she had her mother in an aged care facility because it was just so difficult to look after her. She really couldn’t leave her. But the nurses are so busy, they don’t have the time to make sure everyone drinks enough water. And something else happens. When they get them to drink more water, more of the elderly people are having accidents and then there’s a lot more work for the nurses.

I understand that. I understand it. I think it’s our role to give our body the conditions so we never get there. Is that right? So that when we’re getting into our latter years, our kids will want us to live in the little granny flat because we’re going to mind the children, we’re going to put the washing on the line. Oh, that’s right. You put them in the, anyway, clothesline and do the ironing. They chop up the vegetables.

You know, I say, they’re queen mother activities, you know, slow down a little bit. But how helpful is that for most busy families to have the mother or the mother-in-law there who’s got a clear mind and can be of a help? I understand why so many are put in aged care facilities because they can’t be looked after. One lady said, “My mother gets up at three in the morning. She goes to the people next door. She puts the clothes on off their clothesline. And my mother was found down the middle of the road naked.” You know, that’s very hard.

And I feel so much for the person because, you know, that’s very debilitating for the mind to deteriorate like that. And so here we had this lady who got her faculties back within 24 hours because we got her bowels working and she started to drink more water. She really liked the salt. And if you give salt to someone, you know, what’s the next thing they do? They wish for the water.

So this daughter and her mother, the daughter’s name was Isabelle, she decided to book in for the next week. So she stayed for two weeks. She hadn’t seen her mother like this for 10 years. Halfway through the second week, she rang up the aged care facilities. She cancelled her room and she brought her back home. And she lived with her for another 10 years. She eventually, I think, had a heart attack in her early 80s and passed.

But what a lovely thing that that could happen. So the scary thing about that story is how many people are losing their minds, are in aged care facilities, that if they just had someone who could work with them and get these body functions working well, would be okay. But as I said, the person we can work on is ourselves. And when our friends and relatives see the effect of what these lifestyle changes are doing, then they’ll be inspired to make the changes too, we hope and we gather.

Biblical Perspective on Health

So I want to give you a few Bible verses that illustrate the body. So we’ve got Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. The Bible says:

“I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies living sacrifices.”

What’s a living sacrifice? It works well. That we present our bodies living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do you know why it’s so reasonable? Because we’re living in the body. And it’s nice living in a body that works. But notice verse 2, it says:

“Be not conformed to this world.”

Now we all know what that means. Just go to the fast food shops, isn’t that the way the majority of people live? Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. When you’re transformed by the renewing of your mind, you get a clear mind. And I think you’ll agree with me, are you finding now? What are we now, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you’re on your sixth day of being at the retreat, do you find your mind is clearer?

And when your mind is clearer, you can make the decision to surrender yourself to God. So that’s why it means, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. That’s what God wants to do in each one of us, not just transform our bodies, but transform our minds. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And part of renewing your mind is doing what you’ve just done for six days, you’ve got a clearer mind. So be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God. Who do we prove it to? Well you’re going to be proving it when you leave the property.

You’ll be proving it to everyone you meet, to your family when you go home, and remember the most powerful testimony you can give is just you. You’re happier, you’re easier to live with, you’re actually looking good. So let’s define that again, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God. And what’s the perfect will of God?

We find that in 3 John 1 verse 2 where he says:

“Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers.”

That’s God’s will for each human being on this planet, isn’t it? God has no delight in the suffering of humans. And yet the turning around, you can see why I chose those 2 verses, I think they encapsulate it very nicely.

So the turning around, the transforming of the mind, the first step really is to drink more water, going to bed early, eat more food, then your mind becomes clear and you start to see things clearly and that’s when you can make a decision, no I want to do what is right, I want to show respect to this incredible body that God has given me, I want to be a faithful sentinel over the body that God has given me.

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