Participants:
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP180115A
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00:01 The following program presents principles designed
00:02 to promote good health 00:04 and is not intended to take the place 00:05 of personalized professional care. 00:07 The opinions and ideas expressed 00:09 are those of the speaker. 00:10 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:13 about the information presented. 00:15 Remember the last particularly moving worship experience 00:18 that you had? 00:19 Maybe it was the music 00:20 or maybe it was someone's testimony. 00:22 Perhaps, it was even an act of service 00:24 that you did for someone else. 00:25 Whatever it was, that act of worship 00:27 provided you with physiologic benefits. 00:29 Discovering how worship benefits us physically 00:32 is the topic of today's program. 00:34 I'll be sharing ideas 00:35 that you can use to improve your health today, 00:38 no matter where you're starting from. 00:39 The Ultimate Prescription starts now. 01:01 Thanks for joining us here today 01:02 for the Ultimate Prescription, 01:04 a program dedicated 01:05 to helping us better understand 01:07 God's design for our lives 01:09 and experience better health by following His plan. 01:12 I'm your host Nick Evenson here with Dr. James Marcum 01:14 for another program on which we'll be discussing 01:16 how worship benefits us physiologically. 01:20 Dr. Marcum, explain that a little bit to us? 01:22 Yeah, well, let's do some background first 01:25 and that will help 01:27 frame the importance of worship 01:29 for our physiology, 01:31 worship for our life, worship forever. 01:34 Okay. 01:36 If you go back to the Bible, 01:38 okay, the Bible's always been about worshiping God. 01:42 We were created in the image of God. 01:45 We were created to be with God 01:48 and be in relationship with God. 01:50 This is built into our DNA, our genetic blueprint. 01:55 Now we found out, 01:57 and we've talked about how we all have damaged genes. 02:01 We all come to the table with damage, okay? 02:04 And that's just been, you know, it's just the way things are 02:07 because of our forefathers. 02:08 You know, sin has damaged us. 02:11 And we've also learned 02:12 that's sort of like our hard drive. 02:15 But we've also added things in our computer brain 02:18 that can accelerate damage, 02:20 that can maybe help repair things. 02:22 And we've talked about the different lifestyle things, 02:25 especially in preventing in nutrition and brain health. 02:28 We've talked a little bit about that. 02:30 We've talked through the programs about nutrition, 02:32 how that can help as well. 02:34 We've actually worked on this with the seven-week Bible study 02:37 that we've developed to help people understand 02:40 that there's biblical prescription, 02:41 things that we can do that God has given us 02:44 to improve our health, 02:46 to see when to use modern medicine, 02:48 to help us along this journey. 02:50 Do you following me so far? 02:52 Yeah. Okay. 02:53 But it doesn't make sense to me 02:56 if we don't plug into the most important thing 02:59 we were designed to do. 03:01 We were designed to be with God in relationship. 03:05 We were designed to worship God in relationship. 03:08 So if we don't do that and make that our priority, 03:13 how's the rest of health, 03:15 the temporary physical health we have 03:18 and the eternal spiritual health 03:19 that we were designed for, 03:21 how does that all work together? 03:23 You know, it's kind of hard to think about 03:25 how your relationship with God, 03:27 you know, without that, 03:29 you're enduring stress you don't need to, 03:30 but when you think about a spouse or a child, 03:32 if you have a strained relationship with them, 03:35 you recognize that it stresses you out, 03:38 and there's physical manifestations 03:39 of that stress. 03:41 So without... 03:42 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense 03:43 that without the relationship with God, 03:45 you're gonna endure lots of unnecessary stress. 03:46 Right. 03:48 So that in itself hurts us, okay? 03:50 But that's way we were designed to be. 03:51 Yeah. 03:53 But the way things are 03:55 that the evil one and there's an evil one 03:57 wants control of our brain. 04:00 And that's where the battle is beginning. 04:02 If the battle is in the brain 04:04 and the battle happens constantly, 04:06 we're on this battle. 04:07 But we have someone 04:09 that's fought the battle and won the battle for us 04:11 that we want to recruit to help us in this battle, 04:14 to save us from our weaknesses that we've inherited. 04:17 Are you following me so far? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 04:19 We were designed for that, 04:20 and God gave us that plan for our physiology, 04:23 both our short term physical and long term. 04:26 However, the enemy wants us to worship things of the enemy. 04:30 And the enemy wants us to worship those things 04:32 which doesn't really help our physiology, 04:34 doesn't really help our brain, put stresses on us. 04:37 When we worship the wrong things, 04:39 they're stressors. 04:40 So we, by our choices, 04:42 choose who we're gonna worship constantly. 04:46 Some people, you know, throughout the world, 04:48 they'd worship idols. 04:49 You know, the idols of old time might be the Baals 04:52 and the different things, you know. 04:53 In Daniel's time, you sit there and worship the thing 04:55 that's built in the field. 04:57 In Christ time, 04:59 it might be you worship some of the institutions 05:01 rather than the true God. 05:03 Well, nowadays, who knows all the things that worship, 05:06 maybe it's different things. 05:07 Maybe some people worship football, I don't know. 05:09 Maybe see people spend some time with 05:11 so much with the internet. 05:12 They worship the internet or cell phones 05:14 or what they can do with their jobs. 05:16 Well, there's many different things 05:18 we can worship. 05:19 And as we worship, it affects our physiology. 05:21 It's our brain. 05:23 Are you following me so far? Yeah. 05:24 And if we don't have that intact, 05:27 even if we do good things, 05:29 like exercise, and get enough rest 05:32 and eat the right foods, 05:34 if we do things for the wrong reason, 05:37 is it really a good thing? 05:39 You see what I'm saying? Yeah. 05:40 It's not so much what we do, it's why we do it. 05:43 That's right. 05:45 So with that framework, 05:47 that's why worship, in my opinion, 05:49 is such a key to both the physical health 05:52 in the short term and eternal health. 05:56 You follow me? 05:57 And it's important that we see the big picture. 06:01 And sometimes, we're so inundated 06:04 by the stress of the world 06:06 that we can't see the big picture. 06:09 Now, I believe we have some case study 06:11 that will help... 06:13 In the Biblical Prescription study videos, 06:15 we have a clip from that video 06:16 where you have a case study of an actual patient 06:18 that you worked with and use biblical prescriptions. 06:21 Let's take a look now and see how that worked out. 06:26 Tom was a successful businessman, father, 06:29 and husband. 06:30 Unfortunately, one day while Tom was at work, 06:34 he felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest. 06:38 Tom had never experienced this sensation before. 06:42 Well, he was smart enough to seek help, 06:44 and immediately he dialed 911 06:47 and soon found himself in the emergency room. 06:51 In the emergency room, 06:52 a myocardial infarction, a heart attack was diagnosed. 06:56 And eventually, 06:57 he received a stent to the right coronary artery. 07:01 A heart attack in his 30s, can you imagine? 07:04 Well, this literally left him petrified. 07:08 From that point onward, 07:09 every time anything felt off in his chest, Tom panicked. 07:14 He regularly saw doctors, went to the emergency rooms 07:18 and had extensive testing on his heart. 07:21 While he went from doctor to doctor 07:23 as his symptoms were real, Tom definitely needed help. 07:28 His psychologist was doing everything 07:31 in the cognitive therapy world, 07:33 but it was not enough. 07:35 His cardiologist and internist repeated tests 07:38 and offered reassurance, 07:41 but it was not enough. 07:43 He ate well, but it was not enough. 07:47 He exercise and took time off from work, 07:51 but still that was not enough. 07:54 It may be hard for you to believe, 07:57 but worship healed Tom's pain. 08:01 I know you might not think of this, 08:02 but worship is a treatment, a gift. 08:06 And worship is different for each individual. 08:09 I spent time teaching Tom about the part of his brain 08:12 called the anterior cingulate cortex 08:15 and the steps to take when his symptoms occurred. 08:19 Tom learned the difference between the acute stress 08:22 and chronic stress. 08:24 As Tom grew and learned about worship, 08:27 this treatment was added and changed his entire life. 08:32 Tom never dreamed 08:34 that worship would be the key treatment 08:36 for his symptoms. 08:38 Tom had a real problem. 08:40 Unfortunately, modern medicine was not able to quantify, 08:44 label, or treat the problem. 08:46 God's creation is just too complex. 08:51 And it's no surprise to me 08:53 that worship is a key aspect of health. 08:58 You know, it's exciting 08:59 to hear real life stories from patients 09:01 where these biblical prescriptions 09:02 made a huge difference in their life. 09:04 It makes it come alive. 09:05 In our worship study, the seven-week Bible study 09:09 where we focused on, 09:10 you know, how to move one step at a time, 09:13 a lot of people use this as a way to reach out 09:16 to their friends and neighbors 09:17 that might not understand not only health, 09:20 we assume people understand these things, 09:22 but many people do not. 09:24 Like Tom, you know, it took a lot of explaining, 09:28 what we're doing today, to help him understand 09:30 that we were designed to worship God. 09:32 And when we don't do that, that puts some stress 09:35 and some amount of pain on us, whether we recognize it or not. 09:40 And we reach for things to help our pain. 09:44 And there either gonna be things 09:45 that help us or hurt us, the inputs we put in. 09:48 And those inputs accelerate disease or not, 09:52 or they can help prevent this disease 09:54 or aging or whatever you want to solve it. 09:56 Right. 09:57 Well, I want to introduce worship 10:00 as the key aspect of healing in health 10:05 in not only helping us in the short term, 10:07 but in the eternal. 10:09 And when we come into a state of worship, 10:11 there's hope for today, 10:12 no matter what medical condition we might have, 10:15 and there's a hope for eternity. 10:17 You know, whether we're healed in the twinkling of an eye, 10:20 or whether we're healed from a lifestyle change, 10:23 or whether we use modern medicine 10:25 to slow down this inevitable aging of our genes 10:28 that we're getting into. 10:30 That's an important thing for our brains 10:32 and our body to wrap around so we can have peace. 10:35 When Tom started getting to this understanding, 10:39 he started to have some peace with things, 10:42 his body started changing. 10:43 Then he understood 10:45 that there's nothing that he could do. 10:47 He needed a savior. He needed help. 10:50 And he needed the steps that he could get there, 10:52 one step at a time. 10:54 And I think that what we need next is, 10:56 we need to study worship. 10:57 We've had some, 10:59 the ability in science now to quantitate it. 11:02 We've talked about how we can look at the brain 11:04 through functional MRIs, through CAT scans, 11:07 through EEGs, 11:09 through the piece that a person might get. 11:12 Now we have ways to study 11:14 how different types of biblical worship 11:17 can help the brain. 11:18 We have some preliminary studies. 11:20 Yeah. 11:21 Like Andrew Newberg, did you wanna comment here? 11:23 Oh, Andrew Newberg. Yeah. 11:24 Yeah. Let's pick that up. 11:26 Well, he wrote a book, right? 11:27 Yeah. I mean, he wrote a book. 11:28 And it's, you know, how God changes, 11:30 you know, things in your brain. 11:32 And he's actually did some studies of worship 11:34 and how the brain, 11:35 the anterior cingulate cortex grew. 11:38 Others have done preliminary on different types of worship. 11:41 So now as a ministry, 11:42 we want to try to get more data 11:45 because people want evidence. 11:46 We know that the Bible's true, 11:48 now we want to give evidence to people 11:51 to even help them understand this even more. 11:53 My question earlier is, 11:55 I was curious, was Tom already 11:57 a believer of sort, 11:59 or did it take long process to get 12:01 and to consider this as treatment? 12:03 Well, Tom was a believer, 12:06 but he didn't have a relationship. 12:07 Okay. 12:08 You know, you can believe something, 12:10 and you can understand doctrine, 12:12 and you can follow a culture and not have a relationship, 12:16 a saving relationship. 12:17 Right. 12:18 That's what he didn't quite have a grasp on. 12:21 And when God became real and working in his life, 12:24 when he realized that, 12:25 you know, there's nothing he can do, 12:27 he needed a savior. 12:28 And when he learned how to plug 12:29 into that relationship in worship, 12:32 he started to see physiologic changes 12:35 in his body, in his life. 12:37 You know, you look back 12:38 at some of the stories in the Bible. 12:40 Stephen, you know, even as he was getting stoned, 12:43 you know, he thought of other people, 12:45 you know, even during that moment. 12:47 So his worship was able to turn down, 12:49 his closeness with that relationship 12:51 was able to maybe turn down some of the things 12:53 that was going on elsewhere in his body. 12:55 So worship is a very powerful way 12:58 that we can change our physiology 13:00 and give us the power 13:02 to do things for the right reasons 13:03 and get us back to the way we were designed to be. 13:07 Well, we've got to take a short break, 13:08 but there's lots more to this discussion. 13:10 So stay tuned as the Ultimate Prescription 13:11 returns in a moment. |
Revised 2019-03-28