The New Year hopefully brings for
you a year of change and growth. Some
people like to get the changes started with New Year’s resolutions. Now everyone knows the top resolution pertains
to health in some form. Health has been
a popular topic for my pastor these past few months. And I am glad it has because, it has made me
realize how we have confused health with fads, diets and forgotten
resolutions. But so many of us just
think health has to do with the body, and what we do to it. As Christians health has a completely
different meaning for us, and most of us don’t realize that. Merriam-Webster defines health- (as) the
condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit. I would change the “or” between mind and
spirit to “and.” I believe that just one
of these does not make a person healthy that health needs to be in all three
aspects to be truly healthy. From the
perspective of a Christian, one must first be healthy in spirit and the rest
will follow through Christ (John 15:5).
If you abide in Christ he will abide in you through the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher
and intercessor through which we mature and grow. Through the Spirit we find unity with one another
as a body, as the church (Romans 6:13, I Corinthians 6:19, 12:18). And in a healthy walk with God we find a
healthy mind as seen in these Proverbs (Proverbs 3:8, 27:7) where the word
health is related to wisdom and righteousness. How do we know that we are
healthy Christians? That should be easy
for all of us—through our fruit (Mathew 7:15-20). We know the unhealthy and the healthy through
the fruitlessness or fruitfulness that is visible in everyone’s life. Only in Christ we are saved, only in Christ we
are healed, and only in Christ we are ‘healthy.’
