Keeping Healthy By Being Holy

I was just thinking:

I am always fascinated by how folks think of being holy as a bad thing, boring thing, banal thing, and believed to be something about which many modern folk need to make fun.  In fact this is down right strange because we live in a age that tells us how to be healthy.  Millions of dollars are made on books that help us have a healthy diet, exercise to be healthy, help us lose weight to be healthy,  and the list goes on and on. Actually self help health books make up a Billion + dollar industry; yet some of these same writers spurn the facts that demonstrate God's ways produce healthy living.  They reject that holy living leads to healthy living. 

 I wonder which of these is healthy?  Is it more healthy to be in a relationship where a person  habitually lies?  Or is it more healthy where folks love one another by being honest and speak truth in love?  I can hear the response... DUH!  No one wants to be in a relationship of lies.  That is sick.  HMMMM?  Did I hear the word "sick?"  God's law says, "Don't Lie."  Check out Exodus 20:16. Now this is what I call a liberating limit!

Here is another: Is it healthier to work as long and you can as many days as you can non stop?  Or is it healthier to take a day off... say every 7 days or so?   Again the "DUH!"  Why?  Well if you do not take a day of rest, you will wear yourself out. "Come apart and be ye separate saith the LORD or you WILL come apart."  (Not in scripture.  Someone just made the previous quote up.:o) Continual perpetual motion  will wreck your mind, body, spirit and emotions.  HMMM?  Here we go with that broken record all over again.  God's law says remember the 7th day and keep it Holy (Also Healthy.) Exodus 20:8  This God edict calls for a special day to rest yo bones and make the day special unto the LORD. What do you know?  Here again is a liberating limit we place on ourselves for self benefit :o)

What about human sexuality. No question HS is one of our greatest gifts from God and one of our  greatest challenges, when it comes to our health.   For centuries we were guided by the principles in the Bible to "Not commit sexual immorality."  Some in our culture, even "health nuts" feel this is far too constricting.  However, given many have abandon this one principle of holy/healthy human sexuality, we now have rampant sexually transmitted diseases including HIV & HPV along with others.  Cervical Cancer and Immune issues are literally stealing the lives of our young people here and in far away places like Africa.  Millions are literally dying.  Their bodies are becoming DIS-EASED beyond repair.  Exponential violations of this holy principle, (meant to  treat the body as the Temple of The Holy Spirit) have resulted in, not only an exponential increase of unhealthy people, but  worse:  Millions of people are dying. Worse still,  many innocent people get forced into the same dilemma by the brute force of people stronger than they.   So holy life styles seem to beget healthy living.  Unholy life begets death. (Did I hear about a liberating limit in this one?)

Closely related to this is  "Don't Commit Adultery." (Exodus 20:14)   How healthy is violating a sacred marriage vow?  Anyone know about the John Edwards family?  Senator John where are you now?  Elizabeth how much pain do you experience from his broken vow?  What about the impact on their family now?  This is a no brainer.  Holy and healthy go hand in hand. Unholy and unhealthy become an ugly sickness brand.

An old liberating health limit rarely articulated today is fornication.  Again violating this liberating limit violates a God rule for healthy living.  Folks no longer fornicate they cohabitate. Their logic is they want to "try the other person on for a while" in a non marital "friends with "benefits" kind of way.  Once they have shacked up together for a while, then they believe they will know enough to be able to "stay married once they get married."  Guess what?  The logic is faulty and the data is in.  Every study from Denmark to Delaware give us the same results:  Folks who cohabitate have their marriages disintegrate at at 70%  divorce rate,  once a marriage  they do initiate.  Studies show this is destructive to children of such dysfunctional (unhealthy or unholy) relationships.  Violation of this liberating limit is NOT healthy!

The list could go longer:  Would gluttony lead to healthy hearts, proper insulin levels, and joint health?  I don't think so.  No health here.  What happens to the mind and body of  an alcoholic  who continually gets drunk?  I am sure they are real healthy.  Again DUH!  NOPE 'Ain't' no such hope! Livers quiver, brains shrink, lungs deflate and people die. If you wish to shorten your life, just practice being a glutton or an alcoholic.  

Webster Word History Dictionary will validate how, through etymology,  "holy" and "healthy" go hand in hand, even in our western culture: 

Holy from Middle English holi, from Old English halig, translation of Late Latin sanctus, translation of Greek Hagion, translation of Hebrew ha-godesh; holy, from Middle English hooli, translation of Late Latin sanctus]

You can check out any standard dictionary for the meaning of the Old English halig. It clearly was tied to the concept of whole or healthy. (WOW! do y'all feel educated now?)

Now let's not get the "cart before the" proverbial "horse" here.  For the Christ Follower, holiness aka healthiness comes from the inside out.  "Its a God thang honey.!" (Della Reese.)  He redeems us once and for all. (Hebrews  9:12)  He sanctifies us and or makes us "holy" once and for all.  (Hebrews 10:10)  He declares His children "perfected forever those whom He is making holy." (Hebrews 10:14)  And then (via this New Covenant) He transforms us, gives us access into His presence and cleanses us from an "evil guilty conscience" when we ask Him.  (Just read the rest of Hebrews 10 for good measure.)  All this happens when we choose to turn from our unhealthy/unholy life to a holy God to make us Holy through Christ Jesus. 

Wanna be healthy?  Wanna be holy?  There is not much difference in the two. Remember God gave us HIS liberating limits of holiness and or healthiness to help us live life and live it to the full.  One way to live is to exceed the limits and violate them.  You will be unhealthy. You will be unholy.  You will hurt yourself and other.  Then there is another way.  A better way.....

Y'all be healthy now... ya heah:o)  Or should I say "holy:o)"

GBY

SoJourner