Simplifying our life will diminish many negative factors that are destroying our health and our witness for the Lord (Psalm 23:3). Walking by the direction of God's Holy Spirit each moment of the day will improve our health in body, soul and spirit.
It is possible to submit our body to the Holy Spirit's control, just as we already submitted our spirit, and are learning to surrender our soul - our thoughts, emotions and choices. We are God's Temple, and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9-10).
As we simplify our life, God will prompt us what to eat and what to avoid in order to stay as healthy as is humanly possible in this sin-cursed world (1 Corinthians 10:31). If we allow stress and anxiety to strip us of our health, we limit our service to our King.
Eradicating idols from our life will also simplify our life and improve our health. Anything to which we frequently give priority in our schedule, and for which we neglect God and ministry for His Kingdom, is an idol. Even the fears that we allow to control our life can become idols.
God's love is gracious, patient, abounding in goodness and truth, full of mercy and compassion; it fills us and makes us able to love God and to share His love, mercy and compassion with others (Isaiah 30:18).
His love in us extends even to those whom we do not like, who spitefully use us, and who wound us with their words and actions (Matthew 5:44); they need God's love the most, because they are hurting inside. We are ambassadors for Christ to our community (Luke 10:27; Exodus 34:6; 1 John 4:7-8).
The cost of loving others as Christ loves His church will take a toll on us mentally, emotionally and physically, unless we love through the power of God's Spirit within us; and not by our human capacity to love (1 John 3:16-17). Jesus exemplified this agape love by dying on the cross for us.
Prayer:
Father God, we hunger for the Living Water and Bread of Life that Jesus supplies to satisfy our appetites. Nothing that this world offers comes close to the fulfillment that Christ in us provides (Colossians 3:3-4). Please illuminate our thoughts, words and deeds by Your holy Lampstand within us, and convict us of areas where we fall short of Your standards.
Set us up on a hill, so that we can serve as Your lights to our community around us (Matthew 5:14-19). Thank You for the new life we enjoy through our relationship with You. We receive Your healing for our body through the blood of Jesus within us; and we invite You to allow His pure and righteous blood to course through our veins and to bring new life to every cell in our body, soul and spirit.
Thought for the Day:
When we are filled with the presence of God, His agape love fills us as well, and when we keep His Word, and walk in His love, He perfects it in us and proves to us that He abides in us; we simplify our life and submit to the Holy Spirit's cleansing in every area of our lifestyle.
- Isaiah 11:2; 1 John 2:5
