GlobalChristians

Eternity 59 - Jehovah Your Healer

Exodus 15:26 LITV And He said, If you carefully listen to the voice of Jehovah your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and you give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will not put on you all the diseases which I have put on Egypt; for I am Jehovah your Healer.

God heals and God is our healer - that is stated in the Old Testament and demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. Jesus is God and is the perfect image and likeness of the Father so if Jesus heals - God heals. When the Kingdom arrives, when Heaven comes to Earth, when things are done God's way - healing follows with perfect naturalness.

In Heaven there is "no sickness or crying or pain" and if God's will is "done on earth as it is in heaven" then these things would vanish here as well. Now healing is a controversial topic and there is always the question about "why isn't everyone healed" and many other complexities. For answers to those questions go to the healing section on my website - in todays devotional we will focus on one concept - God's will, for His obedient people, is general good health.

God is a loving Father who wants His children to be happy and healthy - as well as holy. His promise in Exodus is general good health in return for national obedience, no plagues, no nasty outbreaks of boils, no sudden death at midnight, none of the things that happened to the Egyptians. There would be no God-imposed large-scale sickness if the nation was obedient.

We see this large-scale promise working out today, those nations in which there is general honesty and a low level of corruption, idolatry or immorality tend to have much better health and wealth than the most corrupt and idolatrous nations.

You can see this by comparing the statistics in the 1999 Human Development Report with the data in the 2002 Perceived Corruption Index. Its an interesting exercise - the 20 most corrupt countries are all very low on health and development and the 20 most honest countries are all very high on health and general development.

Blessing follow righteousness on a national level. You can even see it in certain sub-cultures with the most dysfunctional parts of society having the worst health problems - and the sexually promiscuous having far more trouble than those who observe a Christian lifestyle.

Righteousness is good for your health, holiness is a great way of living longer. Now, sure Christians still get heart attacks and cancer and have strokes and some do die early -but on average they have far less of the "social diseases" and far less general ill- health. We can see that God's plan for obedient believers is general good health.

This immediately raises questions such as: If God's plan for obedient believers is general good health does that mean that believers who are sick are sinful? (No, it doesn't); "Why are any sick at all?" (toxic environment, previous lifestyle, the Fall, poor diet, etc etc) and "Are there any spiritual ways that we can we improve our health?" It is this last one I want to focus on.

There are dozens of spiritual disciplines that improve health - from tackling your anxiety as Jesus commands, to regular prayer and reflection, to having a day off a week, to saying grace with meals and asking God to bless the food to your bodies (which I credit with my low blood pressure and good cholesterol!), to godly anger management and dealing with issues of resentment, guilt and forgiveness which erode our emotional and physical health.

God's commands are not just instructions for holy living - they also help us with healthy living. Now I don't take this as far as the Seventh Day Adventists do - and we are not to be in bondage to the laws of Moses regarding diet - but there is a fair bit of wisdom in them! Here in Manila it is wise to avoid pork and shellfish - because of the toxins and parasites in the environment.

Lastly - don't forget to ask Jesus for health and healing. James 5 indicates that believers are to pray for the sick "and God will raise them up".

The Holy Spirit wants to live in a temple that works and is healthy. You can do more ministry alive than dead and you serve better when you are healthy than when you are sick. So pray for your health regularly. Don't wait until you are terminally ill before you pray about your health, let God work in your body on a daily or weekly basis, presenting it to Him for health, healing and consecration to His will.

Jesus does heal today and I've seen it personally many times. Some preachers seem to portray praying for your health as selfish and unspiritual - and imply that it is better to pray for faith or for missions or for exalted ideals. But the main requests Jesus answers in the gospel are for mental, physical and spiritual health. Jesus never despises requests for healing or for deliverance. These constituted a large portion of His ministry and He is gracious to all who call upon Him.

Yes, there is a lot more to the Christian life than "health and wealth" but they are also places where we can see God's power demonstrated and understand His faithfulness. Why not place your health in the hands of "Jehovah your healer" today!

(For more articles on healing and a free ebook click here)

Blessings,

John Edmiston