What is the condition of your hearts –your physical hearts? What does your health lifestyle look like? This isn’t a trivial question! As the Pastor’s sermon on January 27 iterated, our health condition can either add pleasure or angst to our lives. Did you know that the Bible has a lot to say about being careful of our physical health?*
We especially know – perhaps more than our non-Christian colleagues, that as Christians, our bodies are not perfect due to the damaging effects of sin we inherited from Adam, and that there is nothing we can do to make them perfect or impervious to sin’s effects. Each new generation feels its detrimental impact more than the previous one. That is why we as humans are prone to sickness of some kind – and the kinds seem to never end, why we have to have vaccinations or inoculations to help us ward off viruses that do harm, why we take vitamins and supplements because the food we eat lacks all the complete nutrition we need, and our lifestyles are demanding. Sometimes the environments in which we live can contain toxic elements that impact our health. (Think Flint, Michigan) We go to the doctor to get a checkup to make sure all the parts are working, or to learn of those which are not so that they can be treated. And be reminded again about how to best take care of our bodies, especially our hearts.
Yet, even when we take care of ourselves, because of Adam’s original sin, which I refer to as ‘sin DNA’, we can develop health problems due to contagions in the environment, or something in our family’s genes that no one knew about. Including heart disease. As a result of the thousands of years of sin’s damaging impact on our bodies, heart disease leading to heart attack or stroke continues to outpace cancer as a leading cause of death from disease; however, cancer is not that far behind. Various cancers plague humankind. Almost everyone knows someone who has had to deal with some kind of cancer or even pre-cancer conditions. And you don’t have to have exceedingly bad habits to contract it – as noted above, sometimes it just shows up.
Did you know that in the Bible there is a scripture passage that tells about how our bodies are impacted by Adam’s ‘sin DNA’? While it is illustrating natural aging, it is indicative of how our body parts can fail at any age. It’s found in Ecclesiastes 12. The speaker of wisdom uses symbolism to describe the age/wear/health loss process. At verses 6 and 7, he speaks concerning the heart: the pitcher be broken at the fountain – which refers to the vena cava which returns blood back to the right ventricle of the heart, and the wheel broken at the cistern or the great aorta which receives the blood from the left ventricle of the heart. Being broken means that they have ceased to function properly. Per the examples at the link below, the brokenness can occur at any age.
This information is not meant to frighten you or, like someone I know does, make you think that every twitch, itch, or pain is an indication that you have some kind of terminal disease! Rather, this is meant to serve just the opposite, to encourage us to be practical about our health and become intentional about being the healthiest we can be. Christians have an extra incentive to take care of their bodies, because for those who have been saved and who have made Jesus Lord of their life, their bodies become a temple of God the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
On Friday, February 1, 2019 the American Heart Association invited people to wear red in support of women’s heart health, and to check up on their own heart health.
*Here are some other Bible passages about caring for our health:
Proverbs 4:20-22 – advice of the Proverb teller
Proverbs 17:22 – cheerful heart
Proverbs 16:24 – words and attitude
Ecclesiastes 11:10 – anxiety can impact us
Proverbs 20:1 – deception of alcohol
Proverbs 14:30 (NLT) – stress and envy
Psalms 38:3-8 (NLT) – pursuing and maintaining a strong moral core vital to health
Proverbs 12:25 (NAS) – impact of anxiety and stress
3 John 1:2 (NIV) – the impact of a positive, Christ-like friend
Psalm 28:7 (NIV) – praising God is good for one’s health!!
Daniel 1:3-16 – impact of a healthy diet
Proverbs 23:29-35 – impact of drinking
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – physical exercise and self-control in diet, activity, and what we rest our eyes upon are practices of a healthy lifestyle
https://www.cardiosmart.org/Heart-Basics/CVD-Stats https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Teenagers-and-healthy-eating - excerpt from an Australian government publication on health
