I am pumped with what I’m about to share with you guys. I think I say that almost every time, don’t I? It’s because every time I get into God’s word, I’m blown away, and I mean you all are going to be blown away with what I share with you today, because this is a Scripture that we’ve been quoting forever, and I found something that we haven’t even been talking about. And again, can I just say blown away?

So for those of you joining us live, welcome. Right now, these are called Devotions with Donna because we haven’t given it a different name yet. I’m looking at more of God. I’m looking at a daily devotions and prayer. We’ll decide what that fancy name is going to be. But basically, it’s a time that inside of our very private WOW warrior group, which is Wealth of Wellness, that’s what we do, we teach people how to think, feel and do well. Inside of that group, we’ve been holding these devotional times for a while, and we decided to open them up and to invite anyone, presently on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, who would like to start their day being together and get digging into God’s word, and seeing what he really meant when we wrote this stuff down. And it’s pretty eye opening, and it’s pretty life creating, and it then blesses you and it gives you an awful lot of stuff to be grateful for.

So it’s funny, funny ironic, not funny ha ha, that we always refer to it as God’s word. I thought about that today as I was getting ready. I’m like, “Huh, isn’t it interesting that I, me, Donna Krech, really, really love digging in God’s word?” Now, those of you who know me find nothing unusual about that. My husband has for years called me the queen of words. And as I’ve shared, when I’ve told that story, he doesn’t always mean that as a compliment, by the way. Like he’ll go, “Oh, okay, queen of words.” Not really a compliment. But he’s right, I am fascinated by words. I’m fascinated by the meaning of words. I’m fascinated by inference and assumption, and I have observed that words can be very literal. I can be very literal, too literal, and I’ve observed many human beings can. But then I’ve observed that we can have a feeling or a thought about what we think somebody means by their words. So I think that’s one of the reasons I like to go digging because you find out what God really meant. What does the word really mean?

Okay. The number one fear in life, by the way, is still speaking in front of people. It’s not even like being caught in a burning building. It’s still speaking in front of people. And you may not have an issue with that, I don’t have an issue with that, but most people do. So you have heard that somebody might be standing backstage, they’re getting ready to go speak in front of a bunch of people, they’re feeling anxious, they’re feeling nervous, and they might use the term “I had butterflies in my…”Stomach.
Okay, well you also could set up a scenario where you’re not feeling good about something. Something doesn’t feel right. Something just feels really off. You’re encountering somebody or you’re encountering a situation and something just didn’t feel right in the pit of my…Gut.
And then there’s something about… It’s weird. It’s like you know something ahead of time, like you had this intuition or almost this knowing about something that’s to come. You had a what, instinct? Gut instinct.
50%, half of the neurotransmitters in our body are in our brain. Nothing uncommon there. The word is neuro. We know that’s brain, right? But 50% of our neurotransmitters are in our gut. 50% are in our gut.

So I’m going to draw your attention to the fact that the gut is called the second brain. Now we’re going to talk about immune system a little bit during this time together, but we’re really going to talk about the gut brain connection, which is why I opened the way I opened.

So just a quick review because many of us that are hearing this, because we’re exposed health and food, as it relates to listen to my body, listen to your body, we get the connection. So I’m just going to do a quick review. 70% of our immune system comes from the good bacteria in our intestinal tract. Okay? 70%. For a normal intestinal tract to function well, it’s got to have at least 85% of the bacteria to be probiotic, which is life-giving. So 70% of us having a really strong immune system, 70% is all going on relative to the good bacteria in my gut. 85% of that bacteria has got to be life giving. It’s got to be probiotic. Now the other 15%, yeast, fungus, it needs to be there because it keeps the good sharp. It keeps it able to do the work that it’s supposed to do. So that balance is important. There is a need for a certain amount of bad.

But remember, this is really just an aside, but I need to mention it, that the biggest enemy of good bacteria is an antibiotic. Okay? So we have taken the antibiotics throughout our lives, and I’m not sure there is anybody within the sound of my voice that hasn’t, that’s gone against the good bacteria. So that’s reason number one why you’ve got to put good bacteria in, a good probiotic.

Now again, if you’re within the sound of my voice, you understand probiotic, you’re using probiotic on a regular basis. If for some reason you aren’t, you’ve got to get that good bacteria into your gut so you can have a high immune system. So if you’re a member, get with your local facility and stock up on the probiotic. If for some reason you’re hearing this and you’re not a member, go to fullyalivenation.com and the probiotic is in the store, so that you can again, make sure that 85% of the bacteria in your gut is life-giving. I want to get to the brain gut connection.

We’re talking about the good bacteria in our gut, which is crucial and I’m going to repeat again. 70% of the health of our immune system, the strength of our immune system is coming from our gut. 85% of that bacteria in our gut that’s needed for the immune system to be high needs to be good bacteria, probiotic. And that’s physiological. But let’s go back to the fact, and I don’t mean to play that down, it’s crucial. If I’m going to have gut health, I’ve got to have probiotic in my body. If I don’t have probiotic in my body, then the bad bacteria from the fungus, from the yeast, from the white flour, from the sugar, from the years of the antibiotic use is going to keep my immune system suppressed. Alcohol, caffeine, stress, lack of sleep, it suppresses my immune system.

So putting that probiotic in is crucial. I just don’t want to play that down. What I want to make sure you understand, ready for this? Is your thinking has everything to do with the health of your gut because 50% of the neurotransmitters are in my mind, 50% of the neurotransmitters are in my gut, which is why I opened with, I just knew something in the pit of my blank. I had butterflies in my blank. I had a blank instinct. You guys instantly knew those answers. Well wait till you hear this. I almost want to hold back, it’s so good.

We talk pretty regularly about Proverbs 23:7. Pretty regularly we talk about it. That’s the scripture. “As a man thinks, so is he.” We talk about it all the time, right? As a man thinks, so is he. Well, I went to doing my digging that I do, and the Hebrew root for this particular scripture, which is very important to know that, it means to act as the opening of a door or a gate, to split wide open. I dug deeper, this is going to make sense here in a second, it means to calculate, to deduct, deduce.

So again, I’m going to put those together. The Hebrew root word for this particular passage of scripture means to act as an open door or gate, to act as an opening, to split wide open, to calculate, or to deduct.

All right, Donna, that’s completely confusing. What does it mean? Well guys, wait till you hear this. Now remember, right now, at this point in my life, I’m using the voice, but there are all kinds of different versions of scripture. This is just the one that I really like right now. So I like how it reads like a script. It’s very easy to follow. So Proverbs 23:7 is where we typically look. Now in the voice, we know it says, “As a man thinks, so is he.” That’s what we know. In the voice it says, for deep down, he’s keeping track. So to calculate, to deduct, to think about, how’s this really going to work out? As a man thinks, so is he.
By the way, guys, here’s the rest of the scripture. There’s another half. This is the big reveal. He may say, “Eat up, drink your fill.” But he doesn’t mean a word of it. As a man thinks, so is he. He may say, “Yeah, drink your fill,” but it doesn’t mean a word of it.

Okay. So I’m looking at that going, well, isn’t it interesting that the second half of the scripture, which we never talk about, talks about food and drink? Isn’t that interesting? But I’m looking at it going, wow, what does this mean? As I read it over and over and over, and I’m asking God, what does this mean? And I go to the root word and the root word means an open gate, to calculate, to deduct, to split wide open, that word thinketh, because that’s how it’s written originally, “As a man thinketh, so is he,” we’ve looked at that as the most important part of that scripture, but I really think it’s the second half of it that might be the most important part of that scripture.

That scripture tells us that you might be saying a certain thing or you might be doing a certain thing, but if it doesn’t match what you’re thinking, it’s going to catch you. It’s going to create an incongruence, and if that incongruence goes on too long, you’re going to feel it in your gut. It’s going to show up in your gut. You’re not going to be able to sleep, you may have IBS type symptoms. Who knows? Diarrhea, constipation. You may be sick to your stomach.
Let’s go back. I’m going to keep going back to that brain gut connection. That person that I talked about that’s backstage, that’s going to go out and speak, they’re just thinking. They’re thinking about how nervous they are. They’re thinking about how uncomfortable they’re going to feel in front of that crowd. But all of a sudden they have butterflies in their stomach.
You have heard countless stories of people running to the bathroom to throw up, or they have diarrhea before they speak. Now I’m going to come back to the scripture again. The brain gut connection, 50% of the neurotransmitters in the brain, 50% in the gut. The person is standing there going to go, embark on something that makes them nervous and they’re thinking about how nervous they are. They’ve got butterflies in their tummy, they run to the bathroom, they throw up. They were thinking about how nervous they are.
What we is going to show up physically. What we think is going to show up physically. I believe the reason Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks, so is he,” and then it shows the correlation, it’ll tell you eat and drink and have your fill, but he doesn’t mean it. It’s going to catch him. We’ve always looked at the first part of that scripture as the most important. And it’s important, but it’s important because the second part of the scripture says it’s going to catch me. It’s going to catch me. Writing God’s word, “As a man thinks, so is he.” He’ll say to you, “Eat and drink and have your fill,” but he doesn’t mean it. He’s calculating and it’s going to show up physically. How do I know? Because 50% of the neurotransmitters are in the brain and 50% are in the gut.
So if I’m incongruent, it’s going to show up as butterflies, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, a feeling of angst in my stomach, an uneasiness. And as that uneasiness rises, sadly it may affect every cell of your body so much that you don’t even notice it anymore, but it will show up in not being able to sleep. It will show up in high blood pressure. It can show up in cortisol spikes, insulin spikes, and just overall a poor, poor immune system.
Now, like I said, a probiotic is a good way to get that good bacteria in your gut. But what I propose to you guys is that God gives us the brain probiotic. Now we need the physiological probiotic. We’ve got to put the good bacteria in our gut. We need to do that. But I think that one of the many scriptures that teaches us how put the good bacteria in our brain is Philippians 4:8.

So Philippians 4:8 says, “Fill your minds with beauty and truth.” And actually, what it says in the original is, “Think on these things.” Think on these things. Think on these things. Fill your minds with beauty and truth. So there are two words, things that are beautiful, things that are true. I always like to say capital T. Fill your minds with beauty and truth. Meditate on whatever is honorable, things of honor. Whatever is right, whatever is pure. If we’re using right and pure, I would say integrity, the right thing for the right reason. Whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy.

Now I’ll say that again because it’s the list. See, it’s the probiotic for the brain. God gave us the list. Fill your minds with beauty and truth. Meditate on whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy.

Now those of you who are with me in business are going to be mind blown by the next verse, which we don’t really talk about. We talk about Philippians 4:8 pretty regularly, if you’ve been raised in any kind of Christian setting, right? We don’t talk about the next verse. Now again, remember I’m reading from the voice.

You’re not even going to believe what the first four words are. Ready? Sandy’s going to love this. The first four words of Philippians 4:9 are, “Keep to the script.” And look at you guys. You’re grinning, all of you. It says, “Keep to the script. Whatever you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do it. And the God of peace will walk with you.” So process through when you think on things that make you anxious. Do it right now. The things that make you anxious, and unfortunately there’s an awful lot out there in the world right now, making people anxious. So maybe it’s health, maybe it’s money, maybe it’s relationships, maybe it’s home, maybe it’s job, maybe it’s business, maybe it’s your spiritual relationship, maybe it’s just your freedom, maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s getting life back to quote unquote normal. Think of things that make you anxious. Think about them.

And then think about anything you’ve learned of God. Think about grace, think about heading into this Easter season and how history proves that the tomb is empty. Think about how we have absolute proof in the case for Christ. Think about how you feel when you lift songs of praise and worship or when you listen to songs of praise and worship. Think about the peace that surrounds you when you are praying or when other people are praying with and for you

Philippians 4:9 says, “Keep to the script. Whatever you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do it, and the God of peace will walk with you.”

So Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinketh,” and it says it’s a wide open door, it’s going to show up. Even that scripture says, look, he’s thinking one thing, but he’s doing another. And as I looked at it, I was like, wow. The most important part of that scripture is not the first part. The power is in the first part, but the reveal is in the second part. What we say needs to match what we think or it’s going to catch us, what we do needs to match, or it’s going to catch us. That can almost be not good news, until you look at the Greek root word for think, which goes back to Philippians 4:8, think on these things, and it means to take an inventory, to count, to consider.

It means if we have a list of things that we go through that we’re grateful for, everything changes. And they’re good things. God gave us the list. So if we’re not sure, if we go, “Oh my gosh, what I say and what I do doesn’t always match what I think. I’m thinking scared, I’m thinking fear, I’m thinking anger, I’m thinking irritation, I’m thinking frustration, but I’m trying to do the right thing and say the right thing.” And I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m saying that there’s just going to be a calculation of that and it’s going to open the door. Based on root word study, there’s going to be a calculation of that and there’s going to be an open door to who you really are. I don’t know about you, but for me that’s not always good news. Like who I am when nobody’s watching and I’m under pressure.

But then Philippians four eight says, “Think on these things. Here’s the list. Take an inventory. Check yourself several times a day. How are you doing compared to any one of these things? Grab one and think on it. Stick to the script and you’ll have peace. Do what I did. Say what I said.”

Pretty powerful stuff. Pretty powerful stuff today. Root words change everything. They change everything. To think means to calculate, and then there’ll be an open door, or as a gate flinging wide open, it’s going to be revealed. It’s going to be revealed. And the gut brain connection, which is how God made up this body is how it’s going to show up. If it shows up in the gut, not operating as it should, we need to work on our good bacteria, probiotic for our brain, and we need to put the probiotic into our body so the good bacteria can be in our gut because they’re completely connected. All of a sudden, listening to your body also means listening to your thoughts.

We serve an awesome God. Let’s pray. Father God, I am amazed at you. I’m amazed at how you show up. I’m amazed at what you reveal to us. I’m amazed at how you wrote things originally, and I’m amazed at how they bring this big reveal. I am in awe of how when you built the physiological body, you connected the brain and the gut and now you’re revealing to us, how through scripture and through the evidence of physiological science, they are in fact connected.

Father, discipline, me and anyone within the sound of my voice to get that probiotic and put it in my body on a consistent basis, daily, so that I keep that good 85% of my gut bacteria healthy, because 70% of my immune system is in my gut. And father, also remind me that my thoughts are connected completely to my health of my gut, which is connected to my immune systems, so what I think I do become in my health.

I praise you Father God for giving me the list. I praise you for giving me the list of the things to think on that you would have me thank God and I praise you that what I say will reflect those good things, and what I do will reflect those good things. And when I fall short, you’ve given me the list, the inventory to go back to. And all God’s people said, amen.