“Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit. Some of the traveling teachers recently returned and made me very happy by telling me about your faithfulness and that you are living according to the truth.” (3 John 2-3 NLT)
It’s sad on many levels that too often we don’t get serious about our physical health until our body gives us evidence we’ve waited too long. We smoke until we can hardly breathe or drink and drug ourselves until our body is all but done, but still fight the inevitable because we’re just not willing to change, even if it’s killing us.
Unfortunately, we do the same thing spiritually. We wrongly believe cleaning the outside of the “cup” is enough, when inside our soul is rotting. We attend worship, trainings, and retreats, but rarely open the Bible except at the Pastor’s prompting or at a small group meeting. Our idea of “witnessing” is paying our bills on time and keeping our yard looking nice.
We rarely connect the dots between spiritual health and closeness to God. We wonder why our prayers aren’t answered or why God seems so far away when we can’t even remember the last time we said more than a few second “prayer.” As John suggests in the verse above, spiritual health requires faithfulness and living according to the truth. What does that mean?
Faithfulness involves consistent effort and, especially in the context of spiritual growth and development, effort to deepen our understanding of and intimacy with our Savior. To treat Jesus as a religious word devoid of flesh and blood robs Him of His power and us of His friendship. The Bible isn’t an ancient rule book it’s our lifeline to our Father. It’s His love letter to us from which we derive His words of life, health, and sustenance.
C.S. Lewis’ words move my heart when he wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.” We can’t see ourselves and others from a proper perspective unless and until we see ourselves in need of a Savior. To believe we can do life without God is like a fish trying to survive out of water.
Health is derived from the proper care of something, whether it’s a plant, animal, or a human being, but there is no “proper care” in the best sense of the terms without the nurturing of our inner person, our soul, our spirit, that part of us that was given to enable us to grow in our understanding of and love for our Creator.
Health demands attention to detail. Plants give evidence they need water; animals give evidence they’re not feeling well, and human beings give evidence something is severely wrong in and through the way they think and act. To profess faith in Jesus and not long for intimacy with Him is to misunderstand the reason for the relationship. And like with any other meaningful relationship, intimacy grows out of time spent together pursuing mutually desirable ends.
Again, C. S. Lewis guides us when he wrote: “God cannot give us happiness apart from Himself, because there is no such thing.” We desire the benefits of being a Jesus follower – peace, happiness, heaven – without the commitment to know Him fully and love Him without measure. He IS the Treasure, He IS Truth, He IS the goal and fruit of our faithfulness. If we’re not pursuing Him, what’s the point?
The closer we are to Jesus the healthier our soul will be.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 