Keeping Spiritually Healthy

"Today's Devotion" For October 7, 2005

Read: Jude 17-23; Colossians 2:1-19

KEEPING SPIRITUALLY HEALTHY

"But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." (Jude 20-21)

In order to fight disease, the body manufactures any number of antibodies and develops immunities as well. Medical science assists through the development of vaccines, antibiotics, surgical procedures, as well as various types of therapies and treatments. One of the most important things we're told by medical science is that engaging in regular exercise and eating in a healthy manner can greatly increase the body's ability to fight off disease and illness.

While people generally understand the need for such a health regimen to improve their living, such thinking doesn't readily translate into the spiritual realm. St. Paul, in his letter to the Colossians (Col. 2) notes that the Body of Christ is also susceptible to illness, disease, and infection on a spiritual level. That translates also into our own personal lives as God's people in Jesus Christ. Both Jude and Paul note that there are those who infiltrate the Body of Christ, the Church, in order to plant spiritual disease intended to drive us away from God and His love for us in Jesus Christ. Because we're so often concentrating on our physical health and well-being, too often ignoring that the spiritual and the physical are connected, such spiritual disease, illness, and infection affect the Body of Christ when they’re least expected.

Jude's purpose is to encourage the people of God to be prepared and not overlook the potential for a "spiritual pandemic" to affect our spiritual lives and relationships with God and with one another. He encourages us to be prepared to stave off such spiritual illness, disease, and infection by engaging in a daily, spiritual diet that feeds on God's Word and focuses on His forgiveness of all our sins in Jesus. We are encouraged to exercise our spiritual muscles in worship, Bible Study, prayer, acts of love and kindness toward others, and telling others about Jesus and His love for them. Exercising our faith means living a life that is pleasing to God as we are guided by His Word and Spirit - such "exercise of faith" and steady "spiritual diet" of God's Word and the Sacraments will provide us with the spiritual resilience to fight off any spiritual disease and persevere in the face of all opposition to God's love and forgiveness. By so doing we are also providing the light of Christ's love to others so they can be led to Jesus and be spiritually restored to God instead of being led astray by the world and false teaching. It's a marvelous, daunting and important challenge for which God has equipped us in Christ.

Prayer: Father, help me to be in Your Word daily and lead me to greater faith and trust in You so that I am not led astray by false teaching and that I may be equipped to "rescue" those who are. So often I'm faced with "alternatives" to the truth of Your Word which seem much easier to swallow and easier to follow. So often I'm tempted to take the spiritual route that accepts all spiritual teaching and thought as legitimate and true, regardless of its contradictions to Your Word and purpose for my life. Help me to overcome these temptations and these false ideas and teachings, and lead me to being a faithful witness to Your truth of forgiveness and hope found only in Jesus Christ. I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
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--Pastor Boeck

Copyright @2005 Rev. Richard J. Boeck, Jr. All rights reserved.