“Well at least you have your health!” Fewer and fewer people in America say those words. We are becoming more and more unhealthy as a nation. God has some ancient wisdom for us. This week we dug into Scripture to find out what we can do in 2021 to be more healthy!
One of the biggest challenges facing out nation is the image that our media portrays of the rich and famous. What do you think that a perfect body should look like? The images that grace the magazine covers don’t reflect reality. None of the people on the covers of those magazines really look like that. If you are an older, mature adult, I pray that you can see through the false image that is shown on these beauty rags. The danger seems to be for our youth. These young people, especially our young girls, don’t have the benefit of a few decades to give them perspective. They see the magazine cover and either 1) try to look like that (impossible) – or 2) they despair that they don’t look that way and plunge their self image into the pits! HERE are a number of examples.
There are other challenges to our health too. The reality is that everyone can be more or less “healthy”. Smoking is a popular whipping boy in health circles because it’s not good for you. However, I would hesitate to call smoking a sinful activity because Christians can in good conscience smoke a cigarette to the glory of God. I offered the example in last week’s Bible class of a professor who smoked every time he drove on a long trip because the nicotine helped him stay awake. He never got hooked on smoking. I’m not advocating smoking. I am suggesting that we be careful attaching the “sin” label to activities that aren’t necessarily sinful. Is it God pleasing to eat a bowl of ice cream for dessert on occasion? Sure. Is it God pleasing to change our diet over to ice cream completely – of course not, that would be sinful and ridiculous.
Want to hear more? …including a discussion on the connection between our spiritual and physical health? Watch this week’s study of Ancient Wisdom for 2021: Health.
Please click HERE to check out the Bible class slides.
You can find all of the Bible classes from our series Ancient Wisdom for 2021 HERE.