God wants His children healthy and whole. That is an established Bible fact. What we are going to be talking about today is divine health – not divine healing. Divine healing is what you need after your divine health has been compromised, broken down or attacked. Divine health is working with God’s universal laws for your body. God made your body to work a certain way. You cannot violate these areas, you cannot violate laws of nature and have everything be okay. Your body, your physical body is a house that God gave you to live in, a very gift from His own hand. God wants you to take care of that gift that He gave you.

 Your Body, Your Home

• I am going to ask you some questions here.
• How many of you own a home?
• How many of you that do own a home can say with certainty that the Lord blessed you with that home that you live in?
• That is God either led you to that place
• Or God worked it out so that you could get that place?
• How many of you can say that…
• Now here is another question, if you gave a gift to someone for Christmas, or some special occasion, or just because you appreciate someone, or just because you love someone, if that person took that gift that you gave them and threw it into the corner, stepped all over it etc. how would that make you feel?
• Would you feel good about that or would you feel not so good about that?
• So here is this home that God gave you. You know that He gave it to you.
• You want to take care of this home that God gave me, because you appreciate the Lord giving me this place to live in as a gift.
• You want to maintain it.
• You want to take care of it
• You want it to look right
• You want it to be clean
• You don’t just want to throw it up in the corner and trample all over it so to speak.
• And take the thing that God did for you lightly
• You want to be a good steward of God’s gifts to you because here is what I know about blessings
• If you handle it right the first time, you get a second chance!
• How many of you like the idea of a second chance?
• Now let’s switch houses for a moment.
• What about the Temple of God in the Old Testament?
• Did God instruct the Levites to take care of it?
• Do you think it was a rundown broken down Temple?
• Interested thing happened under King Josiah – it did get run down

2 Kings 12:4–6 (The Message)
4 Joash instructed the priests: “Take the money that is brought into The Temple of GOD for holy offerings—both mandatory offerings and freewill offerings—
5 and, keeping a careful accounting, use them to renovate The Temple wherever it has fallen into disrepair.”
6 But by the twenty-third year of Joash’s rule, the priests hadn’t done one thing—The Temple was as dilapidated as ever.

• Do you think God appreciated a dilapidated Temple?
• What does all of this have to do with habits?
• What about this next Temple – your body?

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (ESV)
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

God Wants You To Take Care of Your House

• As we said earlier, you cannot violate laws of nature and have everything be okay.
• ILLUSTRATION: it is just like a car – there are certain types of fluids that a car needs to run right. You can’t put Coca-Cola in where the oil is supposed to go and expect everything to be alright.
• Your body, your physical body is a house that God gave you to live in.
• God wants you to take care of that gift that He gave you.
• You are not your body
• Your spirit lives in your body.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (The Message)
23 May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.

• You are a spirit being and you cannot exist without your body.

2 Corinthians 5:8 (KJV)
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

The Holy Spirit Your Room Mate

• And so here is your body – this home that God gave you
• God decided that you needed a roommate – HIM!
• He had waited for 1000’s of years for the opportunity to move in with you.
• He waited and He waited and He waited until Jesus opened the way by His death burial and resurrection and now that we are born again, our spirits have come alive and God has moved in!
• That’s good news –
• But here is the question for today, what are you doing with the house that God gave you?
• Are you being a good steward of it?
• Are you maintaining it and keeping it up?
• After all, it is not just you that lives there!
• So, we are going to take to talk today about living healthy and taking care of the house God gave us.
• So here are some, I hope, helpful things for you to consider.
• You know life is busy and I know it is and the last thing you need is someone piling on to your To-Do list.
• Your body is the most important investment that you have.
• Let us start with the issue of motive. Let’s start with this question…
• Do you really love Him?
• D you want to do stuff for Him?
• Do you want to help people?
• That is always the bottom-line motive for a child of God.
• We want to maintain our bodies because we love Him and we love others.
• How does this scenario play out – How does taking care of my body show or demonstrate love?
• Ask yourself, what is the average life expectancy of a human being in America?
• According to data compiled by the Social Security Administration:
• A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84.
• A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 86.
• And those are just averages. About one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95.
• DYN – the oldest man in the word currently is 119 years old?
• What is the retirement age?
• For most of us it is 66 ½.
• So, the gist of this is people are retiring in their 60’s and living on into their 80’s and 90’s (according to Social Security).
• Which means on average that twenty to twenty-five percent of your lifespan can be lived in what the world calls retirement.
• Which is almost ¼ of your life – span.
• Now if you are like me, I am never going to retire actually – I am just going to stop going to work!
• I am going to stop working for A man and work the balance of my days for THE man Christ Jesus. – That’s loving God
• I am going to teach people, I got some writing I need to get down before I take-off. – that’s loving man
• And I can spend 25% of my lifespan doing it. –
• So NOW, ask yourself this question “Do you want your body to be strong and ready to go in this 25% time frame?
• We don’t want our bodies breaking down on us when we arrive at this season of our lives.
• We want our bodies to be right and ready to go so that we can fully concentrate on the will of God for our lives.
• So let me put this whole scenario into this context.
• Life is like a football game – it is 4 quarters long.
• The 1st quarter takes me into my 20’s
• The 2nd quarter takes me into my 40’s
• Then comes halftime – halftime is where you make adjustments so you can win the game in the end.
• Then comes the 3rd quarter which takes me into my 60’s – and at the end of the 3rd quarter I am going to retire.
• Then, there is the 4th quarter!
• When you get there (to the 4th quarter)
• Just look at it. You are here in your 60’s.
• You now have the most to offer people. Why?
• You have the most experience.
• You have the most wisdom.
• You have learned and overcome a whole bunch of stuff.
• A generation of young people can now benefit from what you know and can offer.
• God has prospered you and brought you to such a time as this.
• But many people run into a problem in the fourth quarter.
• Their body betrays them.
• And instead of spending their time ministering to other people out of this huge storehouse of wisdom their time is consumed instead with doctors and just trying to survive the 4th quarter.
• I do not believe that we are supposed to just survive the 4th quarter!
• Look at the testimony of Moses!

Deuteronomy 34:7 (NLT)
7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear, and he was as strong as ever.

• People are in survival mode because they knew the 4th quarter was coming but they didn’t get ready for it – they didn’t make the adjustments at half-time.
• Joyce Meyer adds this… “Late in 2006, I got tired of feeling tired too much of the time. So I went on a program to rebuild and repair my body. I felt that God had showed me that if I didn’t exercise regularly, I would not be strong for the last third of my journey. It is very important that I finish what God has me here for, so I took His instruction seriously.”

• She hired a personal trainer and a nutritionist and went at it in her 60’s and her testimony was I was sore most of the time but she began to see the improvements.
• Joyce started late in the 3rd quarter
• It is never too late.
• Mark Twain said this…
• “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you do not want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.”
• People say, “I do not have time to work out…”
• Would you let me help you with that?
• Ask, Do you have enough time to deal with the doctors and the hospital stay?
• Do you have enough time to feel bad?
• Do you have enough time to feel tired all the time?
• Or stated another way, “Do you have enough time to deal with all the negative repercussions an unhealthy life style brings?
• Isn’t it amazing that there never seems to be enough time to do it right the first time but there is always enough time to do it over or to fix it.
• Now if you are still opposed to making a quality decision (a habit we have already talked about – one from which there is no turning back), then ask yourself this question – maybe look at it from this point of view.

Are you a Gambler with Your Health?

• Are you gambling that you can live unhealthy and get away with it?
• Are you gambling because you read some story about some 106 year old man who smoke and drank and cussed and oh nothing was wrong with him.
• Well that guy gambled and won as far as lifespan goes but how many gambled and lost?
• What is the percentage do you think?
• For every one of those who rolled the dice and won, how many do you suppose died without living out their full length of days?
• Are you a gambler?

• Cigarette smoking will cause cancer
• Lack of exercise will affect your body
• Unhealthy eating habits will bring you down
• Are you a gambler?
• The fact is your body is a gift from God so whose money are you playing with exactly?

Seven Pillars for Good Health

• This is from Dr. Colberts book ¹

Drink lots of water

• ½ your body weight in ounces is a general rule I have heard
• Joyce Meyer said, ‘My father did not like water. And wouldn’t drink it and died of kidney failure.’

Get plenty of sleep and rest

• They say 7-8 hours is the right number for most people
• The mind doesn’t function properly without it and your immune system is compromised and more apt to not be able to fight off disease.
• Have a cool down period at night
• It is interesting that one of the things that most people say is “I am tired”.
• Rest is a God commandment – consider the Sabbath!

Eat quality food

• Eat living food
• The stuff that grows naturally on planet earth
• Fruits and vegetables
• Your momma was right – “Eat your peas”
• Dr. Colbert says – “Don’t eat processed food but do eat more fish, chicken and turkey”.
• Do all things in moderation while having as much variety as you can.

Exercise

1 Timothy 4:8 (ESV)
8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

• KJV says profits little – I believe in profit – you might as well get all the profit you can.
• Interesting thing here is that Joyce’s trainer said after she had worked out for one year that if she quit right then, that one year would benefit her for 15 years from that one year that’s she put in.

Supplements

• Vitamins – a good multivitamin

Detox

• Toxins are expelled
• through breathing,
• through sweat which is the working out piece
• through bowels which is the eating right piece
• through kidneys which is the water piece

Coping with Stress

• Eliminate it
• What is stress?
• strain felt by somebody: mental, emotional, or physical strain caused, e.g. by anxiety or overwork. It may cause such symptoms as raised blood pressure or depression.
• cause of strain: something that causes stress
• Synonyms: strain, anxiety, worry, tension, trauma, hassle, pressure
• Worry, anxiety, and fear are major sources of stress – get rid of them.
• The Bible speaks plenty in these areas.
• Excessive stress produces too much of a hormone called cortisol in our body, and this is dangerous.
• Coritsol sends your heart into overdrive, pounding at 4x it’s natural rate, and it does the same things for your lungs. It constricts your blood vessels and raises your blood pressure to dangerous levels.
• It dries up your mouth, shuts down your stomach and intestines. It drains the blood from your face and skin. It scrambles your immune system. It wrecks your sleep, turns off sexual interest and reproductive capability (I want that one turned off!), slows healing and increases your risk of periodontal disease, skin disease, and autoimmune diseases. It turns off short-term memory and rational thought. It actually shrinks a part of your brain. It even makes you overeat.
• So, a little too much cortisol produced by stress goes a long way to messing you up.
• And the thing we do not want (and this is the place and the point of today’s study on the healthy Habit) is to be messed up in the 4th quarter of our lives when it times to win the game for Jesus.

Call to Action:

God wants you healthy and whole to do His will on planet earth. Several steps concerning the acquiring of a ‘good health’ have been already been shared in this post. Which of them will you put into operation in your life? This is not about making a resolution for a short period of time. To do any long term good, these adjustments need to be perpetual lifestyle changes.

Question: What kind of excersice or diet related changes have you made in your life that impacted you in a very positive way? Please leave a comment in the comments section below.

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References