Our 2nd Gift To Manage: Health -- Part 1

These are the notes from my talk yesterday. They are unedited, so you'll probably find typos and punctuation mistakes! :)

I want to start today with a story that Robert McGarvey, shares in "Little Things Do Mean a Lot" from Reader's Digest. He says this…

Success is often reached through the little stuff. When Pat Riley coached the Los Angeles Lakers from 1982 to 1990, the team won four NBA championships.

In taking over the New York Knicks in 1991, Riley inherited a team with a losing record. But the Knicks seemed able to play above their abilities and even gave the eventual champions, the Chicago Bulls, their hardest competition in the play-offs.

How did Riley do it? He says his talent lies in attention to detail.

For example, every NBA team studies videotapes and compiles statistics to evaluate players' game performances. But Riley's use of these tools is more comprehensive than that of his rivals. "We measure areas of performance that are often ignored: jumping in pursuit of every rebound even if you don't get it, swatting at every pass, diving for loose balls, letting someone smash into you in order to draw a foul."

After each game, these "effort" statistics are punched into a computer. "Effort," Riley explains, "is what ultimately separates journeyman players from impact players. Knowing how well a player executes all these little things is the key to unlocking career-best performances."

We have a pretty amazing God.

He’s a God that cares about the “little things” - the details. He doesn’t just care only about spiritual things. He cares about all areas of your life!

He advises and coaches us through his word about all the little things that help us live the best lives possible.

I’m about to talk to you about something that I don’t think I’ve ever preached about in the 17 or so years I’ve been speaking.

I’m going to talk about something that I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon about before.

But first, let me remind you about what we’re trying to do in this series. ...

Last week we started our new “Life Management” series.

God has given you (and will give you) all of the "raw materials" and opportunities you need to reach your full potential.

At the end of our lives, no one is going to be able to blame God that he didn’t give them what they needed to make it in this life.

Whether you reach your full potential, or not, will be based on how you managed what you've been given.

Did you waste your gifts or cherish them?

For 5 Sundays, we're looking at 5 of the most important raw materials you've been given to form your life with. I'm calling these 5 raw materials of life "5 Gifts" that God has given you to manage.

Last week, I talked about the first gift that God has given us to manage, which is TIME.

We looked at how this amazing gift is the building block of all we do in life. I talked to you about the idea of giving your time to be with God and investing your time in ways so you’ll see payback now and in eternity.

You only have 1440 minutes given to everyday. If you sleep 7 hours that leaves you 1020 minutes. You can never get more. The only way to make more time is by managing it better. How we manage our time becomes our worship to God.

It makes Time Management a holy thing!

Today we’re going to look at Gift #2.

The second gift God has given us to manage is Health!

Remember, I just told you at the beginning about how God cares about the little things – the details of life?

A lot of people believe that God cares about our Spiritual health, but what about our Physical, Mental and Emotional Health?

He cares about these things too! We’re one being that is made up of spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical parts!

When we only focus on the spiritual we leave the rest of who we are out! It’s like deciding to only focus on the health of one body part and ignore the rest.

I want to make sure my right-hand is healthy. That’s it. If it works and doesn’t look to fat, then I don’t care about the rest. That’d be crazy!

It’s just as crazy to think that God or we should only focus on the spiritual and ignore the rest! God looks at ALL those things as one unit that make up who we are!

Steve Sjogren said this in the recent issue of his ezine called “Serve”…
(From this cover story "The Pathetic Segmented Life: Why people stay away from Church by the droves" here.)

We live in a time when virtually all of mankind lives a segmented approach to life. For the most part, people have a section of life that is dedicated to their married life, another section that is all about work life, another section that is for spiritual life, and so on it goes until, if you will, an entire wall of boxes or segments are produced that is called “Someone.”

Life for segmented people, looks like a multi-sectioned configuration, all of which go together to make up a whole which we call life.

He later says…

The segmented approach to life is not only not biblical in the least, it is not healthy mentally. Any therapist… will tell you that a person who is living a segmented approach to life, is attempting to control issues in an unhealthy way – in a way that is going to eventually break down. This approach to life, one that shifts from mask to mask, depending on the segment one is living out at the time, will ultimately fall apart under the pressures of normal living.

Jesus’ life was one whole square with no smaller sub-sections.

What I want us to understand today is that God cares about ALL of you. He cares about your spiritual health, AND your Physical, Mental and Emotional Health!

Let’s look at God’s word and I’ll show that this REALLY is true…

What did Jesus come and do that was a BIG part of his ministry?

He healed people!

Matthew 4:23-25 (NLT)

23 Jesus traveled throughout Galilee teaching in the synagogues, preaching everywhere the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed people who had every kind of sickness and disease. 24 News about him spread far beyond the borders of Galilee so that the sick were soon coming to be healed from as far away as Syria. And whatever their illness and pain, or if they were possessed by demons, or were epileptics, or were paralyzed – he healed them all. 25 Large crowds followed him wherever he went – people from Galilee, the Ten Towns, F28 Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River.

Jesus attracted HUGE crowds because he cared about MORE THAN just their future lives in heaven. He cared about their lives now and he healed them!

Scott Morris of the United Methodist Church founded the Church Health Center in Memphis in 1987, “to provide healthcare for the poor,” he says. “The reason we do it is because a third of the Bible has to do with healing the sick.”

1/3 of the Bible has to do with healing the sick!!! God cares about our health!

If you look at the Dietary laws and other laws God gave the Israelites you see more proof God cares about our Physical health. Listen to what these verses warn the Israelites about and see if you hear God as a parent telling them best ways to live their lives …

Leviticus 3:17 - Eat neither fat nor blood.
Leviticus 15:2-11 - Washing the body and clothes to control germs.
Leviticus 13:46 - Quarantine to control contagious disease
Deuteronomy 23:12, 13 - Human body waste should he buried.

See! God cares about the details of our life! But cares for more than just our Physical health! Look…

Emotional Health - The health benefits of a positive attitude.

Proverbs 17:22
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength.”

1 Tim. 6:6
”…true religion with contentment is great wealth.”

Intellectual Health

Romans 12:2
2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Philippians 4:8
And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

***How did we as Christ-followers miss this and get so focused on ONLY the Spiritual part of life?

God’s given us the gift of health that we have.

God gave you your genetic makeup from your family. That's how you got your body-type and your metabolism.

For some reason God’s given us each different levels of health. We start out at different levels of health. But no matter where you start…

How long you live and the quality of life you have are affected by how you manage your gift of health!

You can start out with a worse genetic makeup or metabolism and IF you manage it better you’ll end up healthier than a person who started with a BETTER genetic makeup or metabolism who manages their health wrong!

I’ll say it again…

How long you live and the quality of life you have are affected by how you manage your gift of health!

I gave a talk on guarding our hearts from Proverbs awhile back (which when the Bible says “Heart” means our mind, will and emotions) –, so I won’t focus on our Intellectual or Emotional health today. You can get it here.

Today, I want to just look at some things about what the Bible tells us about how to manage our physical health.

We’re gonna just look at the 3 Main areas that effect our physical health.

Continued tomorrow...