If you had cancer, would you knowingly inject your body with more cancer cells? Of course not. You would do everything possible—surgery, chemotherapy, whatever it took—to eradicate the disease. Intentionally reintroducing the lethal disease into your body would be unthinkable!
Yet while we are often vigilant about our physical health, we can be surprisingly careless with our spiritual health. Spiritual health matters more than anything else, and God, in His mercy, has not left us guessing. He has given us a clear and life-giving prescription.
Spiritual life begins the moment our soul and spirit are born again. When we are made alive in Christ, the spiritual part of us is awakened and able to commune with God’s Spirit. We are finally connected to the relationship for which our soul was designed. Before we are born again, we are spiritually dead and left trying to manage our mental and emotional well-being using only earthly resources. Nothing is ever enough.
But even after we are born again, we often starve our soul and try to fill our lives with harmful substitutes. We turn to unhealthy attachments. We allow things that take precedence over God and dominate our thoughts and time. These may include obvious sins of commission, but they often appear more subtly as worry, fear, anxiety, bitterness, revenge, and unforgiveness. Even good things, including ministry, can become spiritually unhealthy when they are driven by motives other than God’s glory.
A life dominated by ANY kind of sin (even the “little sins” whatever that means) is like injecting a virulent virus back into our bodies after they have just been healed.
God’s presence alone is life-giving. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6 Through Christ, we are empowered to live in deep satisfaction. But it requires intentionality. God must hold first place in our hearts. Even our most treasured relationships must be secondary to Him, because only a heart filled with God’s Spirit can offer genuine love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control to others. Galatians 5:22–23
Spiritual health also requires honesty. We must acknowledge anything that has taken God’s rightful place—whether people, work, ambition, or personal passions—and give it to Him. We were rescued from the disease of sin; we were never meant to reintroduce it into our lives.
God not only calls us away from what harms us, but He also replaces it with the goodness of His Divine wisdom and truth:
“Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for rescuing us from the disease of sin and making us alive in Christ. Help us to guard our spiritual health with the same seriousness with which we guard our physical well-being. Reveal anything in our lives that has taken Your rightful place, and give us willing hearts to surrender it to You. Cleanse our thoughts, renew our minds with Your truth, and teach us to meditate on Your Word—which is pure, lovely, and praiseworthy. Fill us daily with Your presence, that we may live healthy, fruitful lives that glorify You. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.
