When I was 18 years old, I thought I was bulletproof. I was into fast cars and motorbikes. To me, it didn’t really matter what I ate or drank or how much sleep I had each night. My job as an apprentice carpenter kept me fit enough. Life was for living. Live for the moment.
In my late 20’s I had a massive wakeup call. After a number of tests, my doctor told me that I had cancer all through my body and that I needed to have chemotherapy within weeks. After an anointing service at my local church and a year of chemo I came out the other side as a survivor of cancer. It was at that time that I started to seriously think about my health.
What if I made some changes to what I ate, drank and did? What if I started to treat my body with more respect? When God designed us he knew that we needed some instructions. The bible has huge amounts of information to help us live a more fulfilled, healthy happy life.
Check out these instructions from God’s inspired book.
Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.
3 John 2 (NLT)
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 (NLT)
You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (MSG)
These are some powerful instructions from God – they spoke directly to me.
How I look after myself right now will impact what I look and live like in the future. When I’m in my mid-thirties or forties, will I look older or younger than my age?
I was talking to a guy a few days ago who was 48. He told me he had very high blood pressure and that his doctor says he could have a heart attack any day. In fact, he’d already had some mini strokes over the past couple of months. I thought to myself, how could a guy under fifty be in such a bad way? He told me that his big problem was fast food (full of high fat, salt and sugar). He ate at least one fast food meal a day and sometimes he ate two. I felt sorry for him. If only he had realised that a few decisions he had made earlier in life could have impacted his life right now.
So what is God’s design for healthy living?
It seems that we should go as natural as we can. Not only with food but with our mind and soul.
Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.
Genesis 1:29 (NLT)
Wine makes you mean, beer makes you quarrelsome – a staggering drunk is not much fun.
Proverbs 20:1 (MSG)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
Do I get my healthy eating and living right all the time? Definitely not. But my eyes were opened back in my 20’s to better options for living. God’s recipe is right on target.
Jeff Parker – Director of Youth Ministries: Seventh-day Adventist Church Australia
AUTHOR: Jeff Parker