Guarding The Five Gates
(Part 1)
The five gates I am speaking of are your senses. Some of the most powerful lessons I learned as I turned away from the “pressure-cooker” life filled with looming diseases were the lessons I learned about “Guarding the Five Gates.” LIFE starts in your heart and your heart is fed by what comes in through your five senses:
1) SIGHT –
What you look on day and night is what imprints on your brain, in your mind, and in your heart. Out the abundance of what is imprinted, you will speak and act. In other words, what is continually being imprinted through your eyes is one of the most influential factors on your choices either for health or for disease. It has never occurred to many people that they could actually be sick, diseased, or even struggling with weight issues because of what they watch and look at!
Case in point – if you are constantly watching shows and movies about other folks who struggle with their weight, their behavior, their lack of fidelity to marriage, “their disease” etc. – even if those shows are supposed to be counseling or coaching them to improve – your heart and mind will relate to those people – and you will feel comforted that you are not alone. BUT what you just did was identify with the very thing say you want free from. Listen…
IDENTITY is the key to your outcome in life!
Guard the EYE gate from receiving any input that is contrary to the healthy, prosperous, happy you that you desire. If what you are seeing does not match what the Word of God says about you… shut the gate. (That means you are NOT a big loser! You do not have a fear factor. You do not need to work out to insanity. And you are not a desperate housewife. Get the picture?)
2) SOUND –
Again, what comes in, impacts every thought and every decision. Sound can be a powerful ally in transforming your life. Did you know that sound or actually, frequency, is a destructive or constructive force? Yes, your physical cells, the cell structure in your entire body, responds in health or disease to what you hear!
Your body actually responds to what comes in the ears with neuro-chemical reactions. Those chemical reactions signal to your organ function, your nervous system, your immune system, and even your brain’s response!
Music, for instance, can be a powerful weapon in your health turn-around when you learn to regulate your atmosphere with different types of music to produce certain body responses! Parents have known this about infants for years… remember singing lullabies at bedtime? Or how happy music can turn a fussing tot to dancing and smiles? Folks, it doesn’t change as we age, we just forgot to employ it!
Here’s a very important tip about sound and health: your body should be in maintenance and healing mode while you sleep. This is not the time to have anything coming in for your brain receptors to process and think on.
In our achievement-driven society, we have lots of folks training others to listen to books, music, even scripture, while they sleep so that the brain retains it better without distraction. Which is good in theory – but not consistent with God’s design of the body! If you never stop working, the cleanup crew can’t do it’s job. Newsflash: it is OK not to be working 24/7! It WILL mess up your sleep cycles and your hormones!
(By the way, same thing with keeping the LIGHT on at night. Keeping a light, TV, or radio on at night is a horribly unhealthy practice many parents train their little ones in, mostly for their own convenience, that can cause all kinds of hormone disruptions by the time they are teens!)
Guard the gates in the day, but guard them at night too!
(To be continued in our next post…)
Learn Anything? Please leave a comment BELOW!
Dr. Michelle's mission is to educate, activate, challenge and equip others to live a full, satisfying life, ever-growing in the Kingdom of God.
Michelle is a mountain-taker in all expressions of her calling. Sometimes it is on literal mountains leading ladies on spiritual adventures in faith. Other days, it is consulting with Kingdom-minded businesses and ministries to develop professional website platforms and social media strategies. Still other times, you will find her training mountain-takers to possess their physical land - their health, spirit, soul, and body - teaching classes and doing wellness evaluations for churches and corporations large and small, as well as providing "secret service" concierge wellness services for other speakers and ministers.
Wherever the call of God takes her, she firmly believes it is time for Christian businesses, entrepreneurs, and ministry leaders to be diligent to ‘write the vision and post it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may be able to read it easily and quickly as they hasten by.’ And then ACT on the vision.
Read more About and Experience here: http://thepictureofhealth.com/michelle-2
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Praise God! after bee bite, bad reaction, inc my eye site affected, Lord worked shown how “Satan can enter in” just like Judas, to guard all our gates, inc my eye(s) esplly after severe eye issues. thanks for you article, recent dream about “gates”.
The Lord helps us to see! Thank you for connecting, commenting, and for sharing how He is working! ME
AWESOME word and AWESOME prayer what a blessing you are to the body of Christ. Keep it moving Woman of GOD!!!
Thank you! We are so pleased it was a blessing and we appreciate your taking the time to leave the comments. <3
I really love this one.
Thank you!
I so wanted to keep reading, but the article ended! So I'm glad today is finally part two. Thanks for the great teaching!
Excellent! I knew the spiritual side of guarding your heart, but I didn't know how the physical body reacts to sound with health or sickness. The music thing is so true. You have taught me that this past year. Looking forward to the part 2! Thank you!
This is good! Makes me think of that song I sang as a little kid.."be careful little eyes what you see,….. be careful little ears what you hear, for the Father up above is looking down in love so be carefull like ears what you hear" I actually sing this song out as it comes up in my spirit and I usually find something I am needing to change.
I love this article. It is so true. Our atmosphere has a tremendous affect on us. I was glad to read the part about listening to music and even scripture while you sleep. I usually listen to a Music/scripture CD while I'm falling asleep, but it turns off in an hour and a half. I have heard that it is good to listen to scripture, etc. while sleeping and I am glad to find out the truth. I guess I need to turn off those tunes and let my body do the work that God created it to do.
These gates of the body need to be "guarded" for the body's protection. To most these directives may seem somewhat "radical", but since I am a "peculiar" person I appreciate the reminder that we are to choose life, and what is good. We all recognize when music, tv, books, etc. either build us up or break us down. Thank you for reminding that it is our "choice" and responsibility to guard our own gates.
How interesting and what wonderful information! I was just talking to a lady from my church today who told me about a book written by Dr. Caroline Leaf titled, "Who Switched Off My Brian?" She showed me a picture in this book of a brain when someone was thinking of something negative and you could see a big black blob that intercepted the normal brain activity and under that picture was another picture of a normal working brain when someone thought positively. We were discussing how there are chemical effects that take place in the body when we obey what The Word of God tells us to do. When we obey, we see positive effects and results! One more good reason to think on what is good, and lovely and of good report as the Bible outlines.
We've all heard the phrase: "Music has charms to soothe the savage beast." haven't we? Well, actually the original phrase was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697, and it went like this:
"Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, (bold emphasis mine)
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak."
We would all do well to take this advice "to heart" because it can, quite literally, make a great difference in our lives!
I'm looking forward to reading the next blog on the "gates"!
Michelle, I do agree about music being calming, soothing, and changing the atmosphere. You and I might differ on what that music is for each of us, but the results we achieve with each of our selections produces the same effect. I know that you like "praise" music. For me, something much more soothing and slower does the trick. Due to the opportunities to overcome that I have been facing these past several months, Pachabell's Cannon in D has been playing in my car nonstop since I put my Christmas music away! Hopefully, after the big "move" into the new unit on Tuesday, things will settle down at work! Blessings!