Wisdom for Good Health

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, March 28. There's a lot of ideas about health and fitness. The Bible grounds you in the truth. With a focus on wisdom for good health, here's part one of the series, Wisdom's Way. How do you think God views the human body? Is He interested only in the spirit and in the soul, or does He have an interest in these physical bodies of ours?

Well, that's what I want to talk about because it's a tremendous issue today. All the thoughts that are going into health, all the people who are doing everything that they possibly can in order to discover the causes of disease and how people can be healed, what does God have to say about these human bodies of ours? So I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I'm going to talk about this whole idea of the wisdom that will lead us to good health. There's some things we can do that'll bring us good health.

There's some things we do that will not bring us good health but bring us in the very opposite. So I want us to see what God has to say because most of the time people think that God is interested in our spirit, He's interested in our soul, but He has very little interest in our human body. But listen to what He says as Paul writes here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, beginning in verse 19, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with the price, therefore glorify God in your body.

Now those are two short verses but they're very packed and so I want to read them again. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with the price, therefore glorify God in your body. Now those verses are powerful because they say something about the human body that should affect our attitude toward our own human body. And so what I'd like for us to do is to look at this from God's viewpoint because the truth is the kind of wisdom that promotes good health involves God's viewpoint of the human body. That is, when we look at the human body the way the world looks at it, we see that primarily their interest is how it looks on the outside. Or how can we shape it up differently? How can we get more attractive?

How can we gain attention? God doesn't view the human body that way. He views it in something entirely different. So what we have to ask is what's God's view of these bodies? So let's think about what He says in this passage and the first thing I want you to notice is this. And that is that God's viewpoint of the human body is what? That the human body is the temple of the living God.

Now listen to what He says. He says don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? For example, if you go back to the third chapter of 1 Corinthians and I want you to notice here what He says. Do you not know in the 16th verse, do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? And you'll recall that Jesus said to His disciples, that as He was going away, He said I will send another just like me that is the Holy Spirit. He'll be in you with you and upon you, He will abide with you forever. So that every single believer is indwelt by a portion of the Godhead that is God the Spirit.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us in order to live His life in us and through us. So God's viewpoint is very clear. Your body is the temple of the living God. That should say something to us about its value. It should say something to us about the way we treat it.

It should be a warning to us if we abuse it, misuse it, ignore it and if we treat it wrongly. Because from God's viewpoint, this body is indeed the temple of the Holy Spirit. He says don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. A second thing I notice here is this, that from God's viewpoint, God owns these bodies of ours. He's the one He says who possesses them.

Listen to what He says. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God, that is the Spirit of God was sent by the Father. He says and you're not your own. Look if you will in Isaiah chapter 42 for a moment and notice what He says about the human body. Isaiah 42, notice what He says in verse 5. Thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth in its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. He created His bodies. He's formed us and He's given us breath to breathe. He breathed into these bodies and we became living souls. We have a spirit and so we are trichotomous beings. We have a body, a soul and a spirit and each one relates to the other. For example with our body we relate to the earth around us, with our soul we relate to each other and within ourselves and with our spirit we relate to God. And so God has made us body, soul and spirit. And often times we think He's only interested in our soul, He's only interested in our spirit but He's interested in both.

Listen, body, soul and spirit. He says we belong to Him. That is God made you for Himself.

Now most people are going to live their entire life and never think that's true. God made you and me for Himself. That means that He has a right to have a will and a plan and a purpose for our lives. He has a right to control and dictate. He has a right to bless and honor us. He has a right to discipline us and give us good things.

He has a right to call us to account. We are the possession of God. These bodies as well as spirit and soul belong to the living God. He is the source of life.

Your heart beat the first time by the goodness and love and mercy and grace and creative power of Almighty God. Now if I believe this is mine, I'll do whatever I please, more than likely I'm going to do the wrong thing. So what you have to ask is this, what is your true view of your body? Do you see it as the temple of the living God? You say, well I don't see it that way.

It doesn't make any difference what you do, whether you do or not. God says, that is the Creator says, your body is my temple created for my purposes. I own it. I own it. He says we are His possession. He owns it. A third thing I want you to notice about that viewpoint is this, not only is this body the temple of the living God, not only does He own it, but listen, He purchased it. Look at this. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you're not your own? You have been bought with a price. Now you say, well what does that mean? Well, God created these bodies absolutely perfect.

They functioned perfectly. No disease, no weariness, no death, no aging, any of that. And then came sin to the world. And in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned against God, their physical bodies began to show the effect of sin.

So that today we have weariness and we become tired and we become hungry and we get irritated and our bodies have all kinds of emotions and they will, our body changes will throw us into all kind of emotions. And as a result, of course, we also have sickness and we have aging and we have death. All of that is the result of sin. So that these temples of ours, these bodies, these temples of God, the Bible says that He purchased them. Listen, don't you know that you've been bought with a price?

Well what was bought with a price? Usually we think in terms of what got bought, what got purchased was our spirit and our soul. But when Jesus Christ went to the cross, that's what He's referring to, because man was absolutely helpless and could not save himself, God sent His only begotten Son Jesus to the cross to die, listen to this, an atoning death, a payment death. That is God the Father who gave the law that the soul that sinnedeth it shall die and the requirement was death to pay that penalty. He also provided the payment in the death of His only begotten Son Jesus whose blood at Calvary paid our sin debt in full. Therefore any person who comes to the Lord Jesus Christ asking for the forgiveness of their sins, their sins are forgiven.

And listen, what comes with the forgiveness of sin is more than the forgiveness of sin, but listen, in the process of forgiving us, He restores us into a right relationship with Himself. So that listen, our spirit is restored. Now listen, these physical bodies also got included.

Look in Philippians if you will at the third chapter and I want you to notice a couple of verses what he says, because this is the promise of every single believer. These bodies are the temples of the living God. These bodies are owned by Him.

He created them. And likewise these bodies of ours have been purchased. As a result of that, listen to Philippians chapter three verse 20. For our citizenship now that we've trusted Christ as our Savior, our citizenship is in heaven.

We may be citizens of the country in which we live, but spiritually our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who promised to come back. And he says now, who that is Jesus who will do what? Transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion or the enabling of the power, of His power, even to subdue all things to Himself.

Here's what he's saying. These bodies of ours, God sees them as very valuable. They are temples of His indwelling. He has chosen to indwell us and to live upon this earth. And so therefore He's going to resurrect these bodies. He says He's going to transform them into the likeness of the body of Jesus Christ, which means when our bodies are resurrected, our bodies will be able to exist in the same fashion that His existed. So what he's simply saying here is this, that Jesus Christ at the cross purchased us. He purchased us body, soul and spirit. Remember these bodies are the temples of the living God.

They're owned by Him, purchased by Him. We belong to Him. He has a purpose for these bodies of ours so that if God says that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that He created us and owns us, He possesses us and He thinks that they're so valuable that in the forgiveness of our sin, the purchase at Calvary also purchased our resurrection, then these physical bodies of ours must be very important in the eyes of God. Anything that He places that much value on, we should place value on. We should care for them. We should take care.

We should pursue good health and good strength because we are the structures that God indwells, the temples of the living God. If God says you're special, would you agree with Him? Now here's what people say, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes I do.

But then in their hearts they don't. Do you see yourself as somebody special? Well your argument may be, well you don't know me. How do you know whether I'm special or not? Because God says so and I believe what He says.

And you know what? My friend, if God thinks you're so special that He sent His only begotten Son to Calvary and die on the cross to save your body, soul and your spirit, yes, you are somebody very special in the eyes of God. Because you don't think so doesn't mean you're not special. What is the divine viewpoint? What's the viewpoint of the living God? Your creator, your possessor, your owner, what's His viewpoint? His viewpoint is simply this, you're very special. I created you, made you a temple, indwell you, I have a purpose for you, a will for you and I have something to do on this earth through you. That makes you special, makes you somebody, no matter what somebody else thinks about you, how they look at you, how they view you, how you view yourself, you cannot change the viewpoint of Almighty God.

Amen? You can't change His viewpoint. Now with that in mind, let me just say this, that the kind of wisdom that brings us to good health requires discipline and nobody likes it. Nobody likes discipline. Discipline says that I'm bringing this issue in my life under control and so the whole issue with our health is a matter of discipline. One of the simple things that we need to watch for to be disciplined about is what we place in this body. This is fuel for this machine. So I just simply want to say, watch what you eat. Suppose you drove up into a service station, the guy brought up ten gallons of kerosene and put it in your gasoline tank.

It'd be knock, knock, knock and before long you wouldn't get far. When you fill your body with the wrong fuel, what you're doing is limiting your distance in life for quality living. With that right kind of fuel comes lots of water. It's very important if you're going to keep your body strong and healthy to drink lots of water. You say, you know what, I just don't like water.

Then start liking it. You know what, listen, drink the right kind of water whether it's distilled or whether it's bottled or whatever it might be and I agree if you live in some places, I don't know how you drink that water. I do understand that. But you know what, when you buy bottled water or distill it, whatever you choose to do, what you're doing is the quality of your life is going to be better because you're flushing out stuff that needs to be flushed out.

You don't drink enough water, it's going to show up. But likewise, exercise. Now somebody says, well, I just can't do that.

Yes, you can. It's a matter of discipline. You say, well, I don't have a place to walk. Walk around the block. Or if you'll notice, for example, there are all kinds of exercise equipment. You can spend thousands of dollars on exercise equipment.

You know what, after about three weeks or two or three months, it's idle. If you can't do anything but walk, walk and walk and walk and walk. Get a friend to walk with you.

Whatever it might be. You say, well, I walk around the house. That doesn't count. Walking around the house does not help your heart. You say, well, I walk up and down the steps several times a day.

That doesn't help you out. Listen, you're talking about your heart. Your whole being is affected by exercise.

And there's no question about it. It contributes to good health. And because these temples belong to God, I'm responsible for doing whatever's necessary so I have to find out what works for me.

You have to find out what works for you. Likewise, a positive attitude. What's that got to do with health?

It has everything in the world. A person who has a right of relationship with the Lord, who is able to love themselves and to love other people. A person who is able to relate to other people in a good fashion. A person who is contented and happy and satisfied even while they're growing. It doesn't mean they don't have any more desires in life.

They do. But a person who has a positive attitude, it affects the human body. When a person is up tense and they're negative and they're full of bitterness and unforgiveness and all the rest, you don't think that kind of thing affects your body?

It doesn't mean we're going to get rid of all stress and all tension, but it means that we should have a positive attitude about life. God loves me. God cares for me. God's going to help me through this. God's going to provide. He's going to protect me. God loves me.

He cares. A positive attitude. But likewise, being willing to serve someone else. There is something about giving yourself away to other people that is good for your health. Good for your health. Being able to share your life with someone else.

Being able to serve someone else in some fashion is very, very healthy to the person. See, if you're self-centered and your whole life is wrapped up in you, more than likely, if you're self-centered, you're anxious. You're concerned about what's going to happen to me. Suppose I get this. Suppose I don't get this. Suppose they think this.

Suppose they think. You see, that in itself is going to create anxiety. You can't be healthy if your life is wrapped up in you. But one of the most important things that the medical field and other health elements of our society are coming to the realization that a person's relationship to their God. Now what they would say, your God, or whatever it might be, you and I know it as Jehovah God, the Lord Jesus Christ, that a personal relationship with Him in which you spend time meditating, reading His Word, being quiet, listening to Him, seeking direction from Him, worshiping together with the body of Christ, singing the songs of praise magnifying Him is a great contributor to long life.

Because the latest statistics I read said that people who are devoted to God, who are faithful in their worship, and who go to their house of worship weekly, usually it looks like they're living longer than the people who do not. It just makes sense. If I spend time being quiet with Him, what happens? The tension drains out. Stress drains out.

I get His viewpoint on things. Don't have to fret. Don't have to worry.

Don't have to get in a hurry. Just do what the Lord has asked us to do that day and trust Him to enable us to do and to become what He wants us to. Now I say all of that to say this. Because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, because He created you and therefore owns you, because He thinks that you're so valuable that He sent His only begotten Son to die for you, and because He said, you are my body on this earth to fulfill my purpose now and my plan, I say to you that you and I have a responsibility to keep as healthy and as strong as we can, as obedient and as yielded as we can, for the highest quality of life we can possibly live, for the simple reason He deserves it.

And the truth is we want the good results that come from it. Thank you for listening to Wisdom for Good Health. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.