Faith moves mountains; love moves God.
After one of my daily devotions, I asked myself these questions:
Are you committed to patriotism or to submission to God?
Are you committed to looking and feeling great or true health and wellness to do His will?
Are you committed to knowledge or to His wisdom from above?
Are you committed to accumulation of wealth or to the riches of humility?
Are you committed to developing the power of strength or to developing the power of weakness?
Are you committed to leading those you want to serve you or to serving those you want to lead you?
You might wonder what these have to do with being healthy or why in the world I confronted myself with these questions. Well, in all honesty it stems from this idea of “blameless living” that I can’t seem to shake out of my mind, out of my desire, out of my world or out of my writing.
Daily, I ponder this idea of blameless living and how absolutely important it is. We are to live in such a way that no bad word could be said about us – this is the standard for the Christian who calls upon the name of the Lord. It is not the standard for those who do not claim Christ. It behooves all of us to examine ourselves daily and throughout the day to see where we are not living a blameless life, to see where we are guilty of a breach in behavior that honors God, and to acknowledge it and work to remedy the situation, to remedy the behavior, to remedy the habit.
It is so easy to point at the world and call out the terrible behavior we see – things like lying, cheating, adultery, profanity, addiction, gluttony, drunkenness, slander, planning of evil, slackness or untrustworthiness. However, in all truth, we are guilty of the same. At least I am. Jesus said if you think it, you are guilty of it. A day does not go by when I have some type of slackness, some type of evil thought, some type of addictive behavior, some type of adultery – if not against honoring my husband, against God Himself.
You might think I am taking this too seriously, but I am not, and neither should you. We are to be sober and vigilant; we are to watch and pray; we are to be about God’s business. It is extremely easy to be about our own business and not His. It is extremely easy to be about our own will and not His. It is extremely easy to be about our own justice and not His. Yes, we must look at ourselves.
In Psalm 101, the Psalmist states that he will “cut all every evildoer from the City of the Lord.” Well, in my opinion, the City of the Lord is not the world; it is the City of the Lord, possibly Jerusalem; I don’t know. The idea here for me is that I am responsible to cut off evil from my own realm, from my own heart, from my own mind. I am to cut off evil within the boundary lines where God has placed me (which by the way, are pleasant). I am to cut off evil in my own heart.
It is not about cleaning up the world. It is about sharing the love of God so that He can clean up the world. If we do not allow His love to penetrate our own hearts and minds, we are not allowing God to cut off the evil from the “city of” our own person, and therefore, we are not able to share His love outside this “city” to the rest of the world.
Health is about every aspect of our lives. It isn’t just about avoiding bad food and eating healthy foods; it isn’t just about thinking good thoughts when we feel like it; it isn’t just about exercising our bodies for better cardiovascular condition, and certainly it isn’t just about attending church and acknowledging how bad the world is while ignoring our own failings.
Our health is really about avoiding bad behavior like slander, lying, cheating, gluttony, pride, slackness, judgment, impatience, scorn and other proud ugliness like mockery. It is really about thinking how to make lives better for others and how we can encourage them. It is about exercising our faith in love. It isn’t just about attending church and acknowledging how much God loves us but rather how much He instructs us to live a blameless life because He has done the work to make this possible.
I grieve about the proud statements made against those who are in darkness. It makes me so sad. We are to minister to them. We are to share the love of Jesus with them. We are to imitate Christ with and to them. In the church, yes indeed, we are to confront one another for our godless behavior – things like slander, profanity, adultery, lying, cheating, slackness – but are we seeing this. So often, we look the other way and say nothing to those who claim Christ, yet we criticize the world for behaving according to what they believe. They are not hypocritical. They just don’t know, but we do know; therefore, we have the responsibility to obey, not to judge.
I ask the question again. Are we seeing the church confront itself about its behavior? The pastors of our churches should be preaching a strong sermon of confrontation each Sunday to the listeners with an unabashed truth and grace that inspires all of us to live a blameless life. The sermon is not for the world; it is for the church who claims to follow Christ. It is for those who claim to trust in the Word of God and who need to grow stronger to share His love and wisdom.
So, I ask you today. Where are you failing to live a blameless life? Is it slander? Is it addiction? Is it gluttony? Is it adultery? Profanity? Running red lights? Trusting in yourself? Having a proud heart? Criticizing others?
We all must choose daily what life we will follow. I want to follow a path of peace. I want to follow a path of health. Sure, I can choose to eat whole foods and avoid bags and boxes. I can choose to eliminate sugar. I can choose to eat plenty of fiber and drink plenty of water, but if I am not choosing to live a blameless life by loving others and letting God cut off the evil from my own heart, I am missing a very important part of my health. If my heart is not healthy in Him, I am not really healthy. We can’t be healthy in our bodies if we are excusing slander, gluttony, or any type of slackness in caring for the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We can’t be healthy in our brains if we are excusing any type of wicked thoughts or proud thinking.
Let’s all of us take a look at ourselves and consider that our Lord has a path of peace for us, and this includes healthy living to serve Him. It includes the health of our brains in thoughts, our bodies in moving and our beliefs to implement His love as we strive to be healthy in how we nourish ourselves and others. It isn’t for just our benefit; it is for the benefit of others, our families, our coworkers, our church and the entire world.
Seek peace and pursue it my friends; seek peace and pursue it by living a blameless life.