return of "The Fat Man"

I went to the DGD (Diabetes and Glandular Disease) Clinic for my follow-up on Monday and everything checked out well, except for one number. And as you can infer by the title, you know what that one number was. How could this have happened? There were many "factors" that I could have blamed....but what it boils down to, the only one responsible for the gain was me...Because I knew what to do as far as eating the right foods and the right amounts, I knew what to do as far as exercise goes, but yet I neglected them and allowed whatever ground I had taken to be retaken by the enemy.

What had happened was neglect, pure and simple. I remember reading Norm Schwarzkopf's autobiography It Doesn't Take A Hero, and he mentioned about what had happened when he took over command over a battalion that become known as "the worst of the Sixth", and he found out why...it wasn't that the soldiers weren't any good, it was that it had been allowed to deteriorate into a bad group by the neglect of its commanders. And because of that, it was placed in a position where the enemy could act with impunity.

I looked up an old message and saw the following:
"I looked up the word (neglect) and came up with the following: “to fail to do something, especially because of carelessness or forgetfulness”... We have seen the in newscasts the result of neglect; whether it is of an animal or of a human being….when it is by accident it is sad, but when neglect is deliberate, it escalates in a tragedy of unbelievable proportions. And as sad as physical neglect is, spiritual neglect is just as tragic."

We have been given great gifts talents and abilities, but we also have been given a great responsibility...to not neglect what we have been given and to continue to use it in the Father's service. Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 talked about "keeping himself sharp":
24Know ye not that those who run in a race all run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain it.


25And every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.


26I therefore so run, but not with uncertainty; I so fight, but not as one that beateth the air.


27But I keep control of my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

In 1 Timothy 4, he warned Timothy about neglect:
14Neglect not the gift that is in thee,

If we neglect what God has given to us, we come in danger of not doing his work and under the condemnation of what is told to us in James 4:
17Therefore to him that knoweth how to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

We are in a warfare, and when we neglect ourselves, we leave ourselves open to the attack by the enemy by "sleeping on post". Oliver North in his autobiography Under Fire, told how he would rouse a soldier who had fallen asleep. He would take his metal helmet and hit the asleep soldier in the head just enough to wake him up. He would remind them that if he had been the enemy he would have slit his throat... And with many of us unfortunately, God has had to do the same thing with us...get our attention one way or another, and warn us that if we stay asleep the enemy will come and get us.

So the warning to us is to stay awake, not neglect what has been given to us, so that we can be aware of what the enemy is doing and not let "the Fat Man" (our old nature) return!