Christian Fitness

Hello! My name is Rebecca.

 

I am a practicing Pennsylvania Certified Health and Physical Education Teacher, Mat 1 certified Pilates Instructor, ex-certified yoga instructor of 10 years and a newly certified Keola Instructor.

 

In order to share my testimony, I need to start at the beginning. So here we go. I grew up in a very Christian home. My grandparents were missionaries and my father was raised in a boarding school for missionary kids overseas.

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I viewed Christianity then, as just a bunch of rules and I thought it was so closed off. So, I rebelled and “did my own thing”. Thinking that I was in control of my life and I’d make whatever choice I wanted.  In college, I partied and did the things that pulled me even farther away from Christ. Back then I would have said I was having so much fun but in reality, I was really trying hard to find peace and joy in my life.

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I continued to search for peace as my life went on past college. Things started to become very difficult. The amount of stress I felt became unbearable. I believed that I had to fix it all on my own. So I began seeking peace.

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I found yoga and it promised peace and it did help momentarily as a coping mechanism for stress. But as things got harder and more and more out of my control, I began to realize that I needed REAL peace, not just a coping mechanism. As the pressures of my life increased, I became desperate for peace.

 

I found that yoga didn’t help anymore, it actually began to make things worse but I was so deceived by the enemy that I would have never admitted that to myself or anyone else.

 

In the midst of my despair, I had a moment where I remembered Jesus. I was at the end of myself and had tried everything else so I begged Jesus for help. I surrendered my life to him.

 

He did not disappoint.

 

All of the fear and anxiety was lifted off of me, almost overnight! The beauty of the world came to life and my heart was filled with the type of peace that is insurmountable, unexplainable! My Lord and savior Jesus Christ brought me back to life!

 

The joy that I now experience is that REAL, TRUE joy that bubbles up from within and the peace that I now feel is so comforting, a type of peace that this world could never replicate. The love that lifted me out of my fears and anxieties is always with me. His name is Jesus and he is a peaceful and powerful redeemer. He has been working in my heart and my life with so much care and compassion. Helping me to rely on him and lifting my burdens away from me whenever I call out to him. 

 

I can compare redemption to getting a new cell phone but not being able to transfer all of your apps in one sitting. He has been going through all of my “Life apps” and showing me which ones bring me peace and which ones steal my peace.

 

That being said, yoga is one of my “life apps” that was stealing my peace. Jesus had laid on my heart that yoga is not ‘of God’. At this point, I had practiced yoga for about 19 years and was a certified yoga instructor for about 10 years. I had made yoga my life. Yoga is inherently a spiritual practice created for Hindu worship. It had led me down a very dark path of deep despair, anxiety and depression contrary to what it claims to help with. I have learned that one just CAN NOT obtain peace without JESUS. He is the Prince of Peace! Yoga was pulling me away from my incredible, loving, peace bringing savior, Jesus Christ. So I stopped practicing yoga all together. 

 

Since I stopped practicing yoga, Jesus has healed me of a 17 year struggle with ADHD and addiction to stimulant medication and he healed me of a 16 year struggle with generalized anxiety disorder. I no longer take any medication for my mental health and I have so much overwhelming peace and joy in my life, all thanks to Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior!

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Jesus has really opened my eyes to the dangers of yoga. He has taught me that my mental disorders we actually demonic strong holds that the enemy was keeping me held down with. These strongholds were intensifying as I practiced worshiping God through the practice of yoga. After Jesus saved me, I had a deep craving to read the Bible. I read and read and God gave me the most beautiful church community. After being baptized in the Holy Spirit, Jesus began to teach me through the word all about the lies that the enemy had made me believe about yoga. The most profound bible verses that the Holy Spirit highlighted to me, I listed below.

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"and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, "How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same" You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifice to their gods. See that you do all I command you; DO NOT ADD TO IT OR TAKE AWAY FROM IT."

- Deuteronomy 12:30-32 NIV

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"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ."

- Colossians 2:8 NIV

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"I am shocked over how quickly you have strayed away from the One who called you in the grace of Christ. I'm astounded that you now embrace a distorted gospel! That is a fake "gospel!" that is simply not true. There is only one gospel- the good news of Christ! Yet you have allowed those who mingle law with grace to confuse you."

- Galatians 1:6-7 TPT

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"But now I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's clever lies, your thoughts may be corrupted and you may lose your single hearted devotion and pure love for Christ. For you seem to gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you preaching a pseudo-Jesus, not the Jesus we have preached. You have accepted a spirit and gospel that is false, rather than the Spirit and gospel you once embraced. How tolerant you have become of these imposters!"

- 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 TPT

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"Claiming to be wise, they become fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

- Romans 1: 22-23