TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER 2024)
“For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” 2 Corinthians 5:4 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 247TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It’s a new month and we thank God for keeping us alive. Today is the 3rd day of the month, I believe you are doing just great, even as we refresh our minds on God’s plan for our health.
Sicknesses and diseases are part of the effects of the fall on us. God never created man with capacity to be sick. Part of His redemption plan is to take us back to how He created us to be, and the final phase will be executed in the age to come.
But from the eternal point of view, sound health is not just living in a no-sickness realm. It is living in the very realm where Adam lived before the fall – the realm of immortality. Sound health in God’s eyes is immortality of the body.
Our spirits are already immortal in nature. What is presently mortal is our bodies. Sound health in God’s point of view is the immortality of our bodies. You cannot talk about sound health without touching some truths on immortality.
Salvation involves the redemption of the spirit, soul and body from eternal damnation. In simple terms, it involves the redemption of the total man – the spirit, soul and body.
While the redemption of the spirit and soul takes place while we are alive here, the redemption of the body will take place in the day of the resurrection of the righteous; also called the rapture of the saints.
That is the day that all things that affects our bodies negatively will be finally done away with. Amen. It is the same period that our bodies will be return to the very state Adam was before the fall. But this time with a higher capability, because it will be in the very state Jesus stepped into after His resurrection.
If you read the Bible, you will discover that the kind of body Jesus had after resurrection could eat natural food, that was why Jesus ate with His disciples after His resurrection.
There will be feeding in that age, but the kind of food we will eat then will be the very food angels eat now; yes, the same food that GOD fed Israel with for 40 years. The food helped them to stay healthy and experience the supernatural.
IT GAVE THEM A UNIQUE BODY BUT NOT LIKE THE ONE WE WILL HAVE IN THE NEXT LIFE.
The body we will have will be able to pass through walls, float on water, and cover long earthly distances in few seconds. It will be a body that can transport between heaven and earth in seconds. Paul described it as “a body that will be raise in incorruption.”
Hallelujah!
When we return to that kind of body, we will no longer know what it means to be sick, attacked by diseases, or killed by death.
The body we have now can deteriorate because of age, be sick, attacked by disease or killed by the end of our days, but the one that is coming cannot. Get ready for the next life by serving the LORD! That body is the ultimate pay for serving Jesus; the full redemption of a man’s spirit, soul and body.
The redemption of the body is God’s final move that will restore our bodies to the sound health of eternal point of view. It is the redemption of the body that we are actually waiting for, even as we serve our generation according to the will of GOD!
Until then, no matter how much we serve God, stay very close to Him like Moses did, there will come a time when age will begin to tell on our bodies. Yes, a time when a health condition described in 2nd Kings 13:14 as an illness of which a Kingdom Citizen would die could come. In this case the kingdom Citizen was Elisha.
We all know that this prophet was very powerful and intimate with God. Like His predecessor Elijah, He was not reported sick at any time of his life. But when the curtains of time began to close on his body, he fell sick.
In fact, his dead body raised the dead when he finally died, but the same power could not keep him from falling sick at his time of departure from the earth.
Though the illness was obviously not cancer, or any other dreaded disease; it was just the body giving way to time because it has not been redeemed and restored to its immortal state.
THAT IS WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES AS THE DEAD OF THE RIGHTEOUS
The fixed reality of the body submitting to the power of age and time when our time on earth comes to an end, is what our worship of God may not save us from. We will be saved on the final day, but until then the body remains a part of us that time will always kill.
That is why as soon as a Child is born, he or she will start dying. Some die for 90 years and finally dies on their 90th year on earth. Others finally die quiet early in life. Yes, we may enjoy supernatural health even to the time of death, but that will not totally redeem our bodies.
The redemption of our body will not take place until the day of the rapture. The Bible calls it the day of Resurrection. Our devotional text today says,
“For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life”.
Our first clothe is this tent – our present bodies. But our future clothing is the body that cannot be corrupted by sin, Satan or sickness. A body that cannot be corrupted at all or deteriorate with time. That is the body that we are earnestly waiting for.
It is the very body that will finally shut down all possibilities to be sick or die.
Meanwhile, as we wait for that body, we are to follow the Biblical steps to live by in other to be healthy. We are to be living a life that is useful to the LORD, so that we can reap the benefits, like we shared yesterday. The next thing we are to be doing to stay healthy is feeding properly and taking care of ourselves medically.
God is not against proper feeding and health care. I saw that in the life of Adam. His food was basically herbs, and fruits that were capable of keeping his body healthy. The herbs he ate represent proper health care, and the fruits proper feeding.
Come to think of it; even in an environment of God’s glory, man had to eat good food and herbs to be sound in health. That is a message.
If you say you are a man of faith and do not feed properly, one day you will be diseased and die. Proper feeding is one of the keys to sound health. Most Evangelist in the early days of the faith movement died for lack of proper feeding.
If you deny yourself what God created for the health of your natural body because of foolishness, you will suffer the consequence of it.
EXCEPT YOU ARE IN A FAST, PROPER FEEDING SHOULD NOT BE COMPROMISED.
Like previously stated, Adam ate fresh fruits; I also believe he ate fresh vegetables, and that was in an atmosphere of God’s glory, not the very atmosphere we find ourselves. Friend, it’s not wrong to eat vegetable or herbs to stay healthy.
There are herbs in my village that keeps the body sound and improves its immune systems. There are some that if the blood is going low, you take them and get everything restored again. God is not against all these things that was why He created them.
But Satan has a way of bringing the demonic into these things, and has done it successfully in many climes.
Today, we have witch doctors that combine witchcraft with herbs and give the concoction to the sick and dying to take to be made whole. This was not the plan of God for creating herbs and will never be.
If you collect herbs from a witchdoctor to cure some ailments, you have touched the demonic. It could help you for even a long while but the consequences will finally come upon you!
Stay away from the demonic, no matter how helpful it looks.
Satan is crafty, he will always use what God has created to inject himself into people basically to kill, to steal and to destroy. I am only showing you what God originally put in place in the Garden of Eden for our health.
As you take these truths to heart, may you walk in the fullness of God for your life, in Jesus precious name! AMEN!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” 2 Corinthians 5:5 NKJV