Stay Healthy in Your Body
By Fatoki Ifeoluwa
Devotional Reading: Go ahead and drink a little wine, for instance; it’s good for your digestion, good medicine for what ails you. 1 Timothy 5:23 MSG
Our body is given by God to help us interact with, and function on this side of eternity. Without our body, we would not be human beings. After graduating from Edinburgh University at age fourteen in 1827 and leading a Presbyterian congregation of over a thousand at age twenty-three, nineteenth-century preacher Robert Murray McCheyne worked so hard that his health finally broke. Before dying at age twenty-nine he wrote, “God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I have killed the horse and now I cannot deliver the message.”
There are many believers who live like Robert Murray McCheyne.
They neglect their health and go about life as if it does not matter. If we neglect our health, we may not be able to fulfill the purpose of God for our lives. Our anchor text gives us the spiritual and fatherly counsel of Paul to Timothy. In simple terms, he told Timothy to take care of his health, by taking the necessary diet. Many people are have wrong dietary habits. Rather than eat to live, they live to eat. That in itself is gluttony, which is a sin that we must avoid.
Also, many do not take adequate rest for their body. We must never forget that God Himself created rest. If we do not need rest, God would never have created nor exemplified it. It would be unwise to work our bodies and not allow it appropriate rest. While we must not use rest as an excuse for laziness, we must remember that adequate rest has its place.
More importantly, we must never forget that we are stewards of our bodies. Even if you have developed bad healthy habits, remember that through Christ, we can conquer every negative habit. What are the commitments to healthy living that you will make today?
Prayer and Confession
Father, thank You for the gift of my body. I receive grace to be a good steward of my health.
Further Reading: 1 John 3:2, 1 Corinthians 6:20
