Good Medicine

James 1:27
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

I apologize that I didn't post anything yesterday. I spent the afternoon, evening, and into the early part of this morning in the emergency room with our son, who had tummy bug for two days prior and was getting dehydrated. Most of that time was spent waiting to actually get in to see a doctor...a six-hour wait in this season with flu everywhere. So I had plenty of time to think.

When we arrived, we sat as far back in the corner, out of the traffic and away from the other sick people as we could. I didn't want to leave with any germs other than the ones we came in with. There were dispensers of hand sanitizer that might as well have been bucket-sized, and enough people wearing masks that it looked like a surgeon's convention. We take such good care of our physical bodies. We're so careful not to get infected with anything, and rightly so since our bodies are gifts from God.

But are we that careful with our spiritual health? For example, when we go to a hospital, we keep as far away from those germs as possible, avoiding infection and anything that can do us harm. But when we're watching TV or on the internet, are we careful to keep away from things that are just as surely a source of infection...but of a spiritual kind...and have the potential to do great harm?

We as Christians can't be effective Christians if we're not out in the world. You can't reach lost people with the Good News...if you don't ever associate with any lost people! So when we go out in the world, where there are all sorts of influences trying to entice, corrupt, or lead us astray, how do we keep from giving in to that?

There are two things that doctors tell us help to prevent disease during seasons when it is common: vaccination and good hygiene. Both of these help to keep you spiritually healthy, too.

First of all, vaccination. The world and Satan's most effective way to steer us in the wrong direction is to use lies and confusion. So, how do you combat both of those? It's simple: Truth. The vaccine against lies is truth. Truth and lies can't exist in the same place. Jesus said he is The Truth (John 14:6). If you have Jesus, you've got your vaccination against the devil's lies, as long as you listen to the Spirit of God who is inside you. Along with vaccinations, though, doctors give booster shots. You need your booster shot of truth, and you need it every single day. If you're not reading and studying God's word, you will be hard pressed to recognize His voice and be able to pick it out from all the other voices shouting advice, temptation, and confusion at you.

Second, good hygiene. Doctors tell us to wash our hands after...well, after you do anything. If you washed your hands as often and as long as the doctors in the media tell you, I don't know how you'd have time to do anything else! The same is true for your spiritual health. You have to keep clean. Every day, we have to get out in the world and get our hands dirty. We have to dig through the muck that's out there, but sometimes that's just what has to be done to get to the people that are mired in it and give them some help. If we want to wash up after that, we need to pray! A prayer like David's in Psalm 5, when he says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." We need to pray that and ask God to search out anything in our lives that is not right and reveal it to us, even small things...before they take root and turn into big things.

Study of God's word to discern His truth, along with sincere, obedient prayer are essential to living a healthy Christian life. If you are not engaged in doing those two things every day, I encourage you to start. You need to keep your spiritual life healthy, and that doesn't just happen by itself. You can't just neglect it and hope for the best...you wouldn't do that physically, and you shouldn't do it spiritually.