Dear Family,
Do you have routine checkups? Do you invest in your health? Are you in the mindset of proactive care for your body, or are you reactive? Do you take vitamins or eat whole foods that are not processed and full of natural vitamins and minerals or do you eat anything King Stomach wants?
There are so many things to consider regarding health and longevity. Does one eat three good meals daily or use intermittent fasting, where you eat only during a 6-7 hour window? Twenty-four years ago, I saw a bumper sticker on a lady’s car that had stuck with me. The sticker said, “You never miss your health until it is gone.”
I ponder this statement often, but what comes to my mind is my spiritual health. As the Israelites were coming out of the forty years in the wilderness, these concerns were written to them in Deuteronomy 8:11-20
“”Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
This very thing happens time and time again through the Bible. It is this same concern of mine today. Have I forgotten the Lord’s faithfulness to me and my family? Have I become lukewarm? As I read the devotional “Abide In Christ” by Andrew Murray and read my Bible, it is heartbreaking that I am not Abiding very well. I am more concerned with my physical health and less with my spiritual health. Jesus tells us clearly how to live a healthy, joyful, and productive life. I worry the good life has gotten in the way.
Will you join me this Sunday as we look at “Abiding in the Word”? I promise I will preach to myself louder than anyone who hears it. See you Sunday at 9:30 AM.
In Him,
Pastor Chris